,

,.
).-r IV L H
.r ".1 ...
e 1 1:045110 Ec 14 c. .1
/ 4: 54 ' 1 u :.-. 1c
1. IAA
11:0 lc, V.c.c.c ss
04
-1-1,13 . 30 tril4uttlil.N.1Rte._
1 1
it:, 4!: , 0: 1
i2:15c DiLsfms ..
Ler
'1 J:f-45-i3-it r,.11,1.114
' I IS t I- i ,;,,d q
Pf RZad
1 . 3'..-
".5 1u ' Wt4d .
1:55 In[
A.:0: no re e
es.
ie% 2. 1114.45a.i.aftrc
VOL.13, NO. 2
 Contributors
ROGER W. COON is associate secretary of the Ellen G. White
Estate in Silver Spring, Maryland. He is currently writing a new
college-level textbook for prophetic guidance courses and two sup-
plementary reading books on the most significant visions and mes-
sages of Ellen G. White.

RON GRAYBILL is associate professor of history and religion at

Lorna Linda Univeristy Riverside and editor of ADVENTIST
HERITAGE magazine. He has written two books and numerous
articles on Adventist history and is currently preparing an annotated
edition of the diary of Angeline Andrews, wife of J. N. Andrews.

MIRIAM WOOD is the author of fifteen books and numerous

articles published in Adventist journals. For the past eight years she
has written an advice column in the Adventist Review entitled "Dear
Miriam" and from 1958-1981 she authored a weekly column in the
same journal entitled "The Art of Living."

GEORGE KNIGHT is professor of church history at Andrews

University, editor of Andrews University Seminary Studies and re-
search editor of The Journal of Adventist Education. He has pub-
lished numerous articles and is the author of five books, his most
recent being Angry Saints.

All pictures and illustrations used in this issue are courtesy of Loma
Linda University Heritage Rooms or the Adventist Heritage collec-
tion unless designated otherwise.
Summer, 1990 Adventist
liefitage
Volume 13
Number 2

ISSN 0360-389X

EDITORS
G
Ronald D. Graybill
Loma Linda University Riverside
Gary Land
Andrews University EDITOR'S STUMP 2
Dorothy Minchin-Comm
Loma Linda University Riverside
Adventist Faith Healing in the 1890s 3
ISSUE EDITOR George Knight
Ronald D. Graybill

MANAGING EDITOR Council to a Nervous Bridegroom 15

James R. Nix Roger W. Coon
Loma Linda University

ASSISTANT MANAGING Letter to Elizabeth 25

EDITOR Ellen G. White, With Notes by Ron Graybill
Shirley M. Chipman
Loma Linda University
A Room for the Teacher 37
Miriam Wood
MANAGING BOARD
Delmer Ross, Secretary
Ronald D. Graybill
Maurice Hodgen
Judy Larson ADVENTIST HERITAGE is published by the Department of Ar-
Dorothy Minchin-Comm chives and Special Collections with the Department of History and
James R. Nix the School of Religion, Loma Linda University, Loma Linda, CA
Kenneth L. Vine
92350. Bulk postage rates paid at Loma Linda, CA. 1990 by Loma
Norman J. Woods
Linda University, Department of Archives and Special Collections,
EDITORIAL BOARD Loma Linda, CA 92350.
Delmer Ross, Chairman $12.00 for a regular subscription 4 issues
James R. Nix, Secretary $18.00 [U.S.] for a subscription (Canada)
Shirley M. Chipman $22.00 [U.S.] for a subscription (Overseas Surface Mail)
Ronald D. Graybill $27.00 [U.S.] for a subscription (Overseas Air Mail)
Gary Land $2.00 each for back issues, minimum of ten. Index available.
Judy Larson Subscription orders, change of address notices, editorial correspon-
Dorothy M i nchin - Co m m dence and manuscripts should be sent to: Adventist Heritage, Loma
Linda University, Loma Linda, CA 92350.
PROMOTIONAL BOARD
ADVENTIST HERITAGE invites manuscripts. Each will be consid-
James R. Nix, Secretary
Ronald D. Graybill
ered, but no responsibility will be assumed for unsolicited materials.
Delmer Ross ADVENTIST HERITAGE is indexed in the S.D.A. Periodical Index,
R. Dale McCune and is available from University Microfilms International.
Richard Weismeyer
Norman J. Woods

`hh
h 411 St

Like other features of Loma Linda University,

ADVENTIST HERITAGE is also changing. Dorothy
Minchin-Comm, professor of English, will be-
come the principal editor of the journal so that Ron
Graybill can devote more time to research projects.
Graybill will continue as an issue editor and will
assist, as he did on this issue, with the production
of the magazine. Speaking of production, this
issue was composed and laid out entirely with
desktop publishing software. It is not as decorative
as most previous issues, but the savings have
Ronald D. Graybill
helped ensure the survival of the journal as the
university passed through a period of transition.
ADVENTIST HERITAGE is being adopted by Loma Linda University
Riverside, but Jim Nix, director of Archives and Special Collections in the
Del Webb Library on the health-science campus of Loma Linda University,
continues as managing editor.
Producing ADVENTIST HERITAGE on a
timely basis has been, unfortunately, an unrealized
goal of the editor. Another goal we have is to
increase the number of annual issues. The manag-
ing board believes that a quarterly journal will
attract and hold more subscribers than a twice-
yearly magazine. The first step toward that goal
will be to publish three issues in a year. Subscrib-
ers will, nevertheless, receive four issues for their
subscription, regardless of the exact publication
dates.
Dorothy M. Comm
Among the articles in this issue is one in
which Roger M. Coon passes on a story about
(See The Editor's Stump, p. 48)
 Adventist Faith Healing
In the 1890s
By George Knight

,, F riday night [June 6,1890] a meeting was held at Bro. W.

H. Hall's house, which lasted till 3:00 o'clock in the
morning, and they report eleven cases of healing during
that meeting." Thus announced Dan T. Jones, Secretary
of the General Conference of Seventh-day Adventists,
to O. A. Olsen, the denomination's chief executive.'
The June 6 meeting was only one of several in a "healing-wave
that had come over Battle Creek." Likewise, the eleven were
merely a portion of a "large number of cases of healing" that had
been reported. On the Sabbath afternoon of June 7 the Battle Creek
Adventists witnessed a meeting in which many testified "to the
goodness of God in hearing their prayers." In addition, "there were
also quite a number of those who had been healed there to bear
testimony to the fact of their healing." The leaders in this faith-
healing revival were a Sister Marks from Washington, who claimed
to have "the power to impart the Holy Ghost by the laying on of
hands, and to cast out devils," and a Sister Parmele, apparently of
Battle Creek.2
Dan Jones concluded that if this were the healing power of God,
he would be the last to discourage it. He was also careful to point
out that there was no evidence of fanaticism. Five days later,
however, he was not nearly as positive in his evaluation. "From
what I have learned of it since I wrote you last," he reported to
Olsen, "I am quite well convinced that the movement is not from
the right source, and that it will be wisdom and duty to check it, by
using mild means of course, if mild means will do."3
Whatever "means"mild or otherwiseDan Jones and his
administrative colleagues used to quell the healing wave, they must
have been effective since the issue did not surface as a problem

FAITH HEALING 3
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

and W. W. Prescott (President of Battle Creek College

and Secretary of the Seventh-day Adventist Education
Society) reported the healing of a Dr. Douse in answer
to prayer. Then on August 21 Jones reported from the
Mount Vernon, Ohio, camp meeting that "the power of
the Lord is present to forgive, to cleanse, and to heal."
The meetings, he noted, were the most "powerfully
impressive" he had ever seen. "The large tent was
nearly full, and the whole congregation was weeping,
many of them aloud, and praising God, and praying for
mercy and grace. Oh, it was wonderful. . . . And it is
going to continue and grow more powerful and more
precious."6
The exact extent of the power and the magnitude
of the charismatic blessing was yet to be seen. More
reports were soon on their way. On August 25 John N.
Loughboroughrespected Adventist pioneer minis-
terreported to Olsen: "After meeting last night Bro.
[A. T.] Jones and myself prayed with two sisters that
were healed. This morning twelve presented them-
selves, at the close of the morning meeting, who had
Dan T. Jones believed the faith-healing movement faith to be healed. All were healed in answer to prayer.
needed to be checked by "mild means." Since then some three or four of the ministers have
been kept busy much of the day praying for the sick."
At least twenty-five had been healed since the previous
again until the late summer of 1891. On the other hand, evening. The Ohio experience was repeated at the
Dr. John Harvey Kellogg, director of the Battle Creek Illinois camp meeting.'
Sanitarium, claimed that the interest in healing contin-
ued throughout the interim, but was not particularly
annoying since it did not receive much publicity."
The presence of D. T. Bourdeau's article on "Praying
for the Sick" in the Review and Herald of December
1890 tends to support Kellogg's assessment. flour-
deau left no doubt in the minds of his readers that they
could expect a true gift of healing as a part of the latter
rain when many "shall be made perfectly healthy." He
was quick to point out that there were also many
spurious gifts of healing: "A wily foe understands how
powerful for good is the true gift of healing; therefore
he has multiplied counterfeit gifts of healing, by which
to reach hearts and turn honest souls away from the
truths for these times." As a result, Bourdeau sug-
gested, the gift must be tested. The crucial test seemed
to be whether the healer endorsed the whole Bible; that
is, the Adventist interpretation of it.5
Adventist faith healing became prominent once
again during the summer of 1891. This time, however,
it was not being propounded by little-known church
members, but by some of the denomination's foremost
preachers. For example, at the influential Harbor
Springs educational convention on August 4, A. T. Jones J. N. Loughborough reported that more than a dozen
people were healed in response to his prayers.

4 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

As might be expected, not everyone was happy to an abrupt halt when Hobbs attended the Michigan
with the new gift. Foremost among the movement's camp meeting. While there he "was prayed for and
detractors was r. Kellogg. As pronounced healed." As a
early as August 23 he was result, Kellogg reported, he
complaining that Jones, in his "denounced the dietetic rules,
eschatological excitement, was . . . declared that I had been
telling the students preparing starving himthat he was
to become medical missionar- cured and able to eat any-
ies that it was useless to spend thing,went to Lincoln, was
time in preparation since mis- married, and day-before-yes-
sion work would not continue terday, just one week after his
for more than a couple of years.8 marriage, died."1
The real crisis in the faith Kellogg went on to expose
healing movement took place the case of a Miss Hammond,
on September 30 when John who had been stricken with
Hobbs died on the campus of typhoid fever. On the Sabbath
soon to open Union College in of September 20, Loughbor-
Nebraska. Hobbs, reported the ough had prayed for her, and
secretary of the General Con- had announced from the Battle
ference, had been healed that Creek Tabernacle pulpit that
summer at the Michigan camp she had been healed, noting
meeting. that it was one of the most
Kellogg was infuriated by Dr. Kellogg was angered when Hobbs, a dia- remarkable instances of heal-
the circumstances of Hobbs' betic, abandoned medical advice in the false ing that he had seen since 1844.
death. He flatly condemned belief that he was healed Then, to demonstrate the va-
"the fanatical zeal of some of lidity of her healing and the
our leading brethren in what they are pleased to call the strength of her faith in it, Miss Hammond was encour-
exercise of faith." To him it was presumption rather aged to leave her sick bed, even though her tempera-
than faith. Kellogg claimed he had kept quiet about the ture was 104, and made to walk. "She fainted away
faith healings as long as they were confined to persons once or twice," recalled Kellogg, "but they still in-
of little influence. But now that influential men were sisted that she must show her faith, and even insisted
leading out in the healing work he saw nothing but on taking her out to ride." She returned with a tempera-
disaster on the horizon. ture of 105 and rapidly sank into a comatose state.
Hobbs, Kellogg reported, had come to him several Mrs. W. H. Hallthe faith-healing extremist in this
weeks before for an examination. He found him to be caseand others insisted that to allow the young
suffering from a "grave" patient to have medical
form of diabetes. The doctor treatment was to show a
Honts.Died in Lincoln, Nebr., Sept. 30, 1891, of diabetee,
put Hobbs on a careful and 301311 A. Hobbs, in the twenty-sixth year of his age. He woes lack of faith and that those
born in Sheridan, Ill., Oct. 20, 1805. When about seventeen who did so would be re-
thorough treatment and he yeare old, at it camp-rueeting in his native place, he was con
had made some improve- reeled cud 13111313Zed. In 1885 he entered Battle Creek Coltege, sponsible if she died. "I
graduating in the English course in 1888, and in the Scientlfb,
ment. Then, just before in MM. During the school year, Sept., 1890, to June, 1831. he presume," Kellogg remon-
was employed at teacher in the Academy at South Lancaster, strated, "now that she is
the Michigan camp meet- Mass. Being engaged at one of the teachers in Dillon College,
ing, Hobbs wrote Kellogg though he hail for mouths been suffering under the power of dead, [that] those who have
llit:enFe, he was so blessed and strengthened by prayer being
for advice concerning offered in his behalf, as to be led to hope that he would tie alile been chiefly instrumental
to go forward without difficulty with his Colicge duties, mid in her death will say that
marriage and going into started :teem aingiy for his field of labor, Stopping over at Mt.
teaching. Kellogg earnestly Pleasusii, Iowa, he was there, Sept. 23, married to sister Angelis death was caused by lack
M. Washburn, and reached College View, Sept. 24, the day of
advised him to do neither; lic t He 60011 began to show symptoms of failing of faith.""
strength, the powers of nature rapidly gave way, wind at about The doctor wrote to
but to devote himself to II A. NI,, Sept. 30, the day of the opening of the College, he
taking care of his health i l uietly passed away. He was brought to the home of hit par- W. C. White that somebody
ents in this city, awl a large congregation attended the funeral
for a few months. at the Tahernacle, Oct. 3. had "to speak out against
Kellogg's recom- this foolish exercise of
mended treatments came faith." He then indicated
FAITH HEALING 5
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
that neither White's father or mother had ever showed
any sympathy with this irresponsible mode of exercis-
ing faith. "They always continued the employment of
proper means in connection with prayer and the exer-
cise of faith, asking God to bless the means used."
That, he claimed, was in stark contrast with those who
were teaching that to use any medical means in the
cure demonstrated a lack of faith.'2
The General Conference president was also per-
plexed with "this wholesale manner of healing." While
not completely siding with Kellogg, Olsen made it
plain that in praying for the sick he always asked God's
will to be done rather than demanding that God heal the
sick. Some of the Adventists in Battle Creek, he
suggested, seemed to be taking the latter course.
The October 21 Review, meanwhile, published an
article on "Frauds in Faith-Healing." After exposing a
non-Adventist faith-cure physician, it went on to note
that the very prevalence and prominence of such men
was "strong evidence that God is preparing to pour out
his Spirit in healing power during the latter rain, and
hence Satan is seeking to deceive as many as possible,
and blind them to the genuine work of divine power.14
The Battle Creek Adventists were undoubtedly
caught in the tension between their fear of false char-
ismatic gifts and the pneumaticological expectations
of their eschatology. They did not want to accept the
false, but they feared rejecting true gifts. Thus the
Adventists were especially vulnerable in the early
1890s as the national Sunday law crisis daily thun-
dered the signs of the times. Beyond that, the appeal
of fellow believer R. M. King, who had been convicted
of breaking the Tennessee Sunday law, was scheduled
to be heard by the United States Supreme Court in the
near future. It is in the context of these exciting events
that the Adventist faith healing movement must be
understood. The Adventist community was inflamed
with eschatological anticipation.
The American Sentinel kept Adventists in a high state of expectation as R.M. King's Sunday law case
worked its way up to the Supreme Court.
6 SUMMER, 1990
Despite the excitement, Kellogg's October 2,1891,
letter reporting the deaths of Hobbs and Hammond was
merely one salvo in a barrage of epistles against what
he deemed to be a fanatical faith-healing movement.
During the next year he would repeatedly request
W. C. and Ellen White, who were in Australia and
New Zealand, to take a public stand on the issue.
On October 21 Kellogg outlined what he under-
stood to be the theory of A. T. Jones and W. W.
Prescott. First, before being prayed for, a person
should be convinced in his own mind that it is God's
will for him to be healed. Second, if he believes he has
evidence that this is the case, then he should call the
church elders, be anointed and prayed for, and then it
is his duty to believe that he is healed. Third, there can
be no doubt that he has been healed, since the Bible
rule has been carried out and the promise is certain
when the rule is followed. Fourth, however, after the
prayer the "healed" individual must not expect all the
symptoms of his disease to be gone, because the devil
will tempt him to disbelief with the old symptoms. As
a result, "it is his duty to cling to his faith and not yield
to the suggestion that he is not healed." Fifth, the
person prayed for in this manner must be publicly
announced as healed, despite the devil's evidence to
the contrary. They are to 'walk out on faith' as a
testimony to the Lord's power.
Kellogg concluded that such a course was neither
biblical nor sensible since a person could be in error
regarding his impressions concerning the Lord's will.
Furthermore, the doctor pointed out, there is a test that
can be applied to healing caseslet the "healed"
person be critically examined by a competent physi-
cian. Kellogg then lashed out at "the glaring inconsis-
tency of maintaining that the person is healed when he
is not healed." He illustrated his point by the case of
Brother Brigham who had been "healed" by prayer and
"`orificial surgery" innumerable times, and who con-
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

tinued to demonstrate "the curative power of faith" by

painfully "hitching" his way up the Tabernacle aisle on
two canes, but who was still as paralyzed as ever. He
then went on to bemoan the fact that Hobbs had even
been declared healed during his funeral sermon."
In January 1892 Kellogg wondered out loud if it
were "possible that the Lord undertakes to do a miracle
in these cases of healing and make[s] such a botch job
of it?" Back in his October 21 letter he had been
careful to point out that he was not sure how much
Prescott, Jones, and Loughborough were behind the
fanatical events in Battle Creek, since he had not
personally interviewed them. That task he would
undertake early in 1892. While it has not been possible
to discover the exact beliefs of these Adventist leaders
in regard to faith healing in 1891, there is enough
evidence to implicate them in the main outlines of the
problem. On the other hand, as will become evident
during our discussion of developments in 1892, Jones,
Prescott, and Loughborough's less-prominent follow-
ers seemed to carry their beliefs to further extremes
than they did." Christian Scientist Mary Baker Eddy helped popular-
At this point it is important to note that the ize mind cure during this era.
Adventist faith healers were not operating in a vac-
uum. Not only was this period of American history the
time of the development of "mind cure" and "mental
therapeutics" by such religionists as Mary Baker Eddy, THE ATONEMENT
but, much more importantly for the Adventists, it was FOR
the era in which the faith-healing wing of the holiness
movement was reaching maturity in conservative SIN AND SICKNESS;
Protestantism. There were many parallels between the
holiness revival of the post Civil War decades and the
A FULL SALVATION
development of Adventism's "holiness" emphasis in
TOR
the period following the 1888 righteousness by faith
renewal. A. T. Jones was at the center of many of these SOIL AND BODY.
parallels." It is undoubtedly more than coincidental RV

that the Adventist faith healers had beliefs similar to

ei,p 1 f KELSO eART ER,
those of the holiness advocates. A rapid survey of their
Airehor of " Thrpr NlamAnr,+e " MitarIvi of lirolirtit.-
literature should be sufficient to highlight the similari- " $wprr.oeur41 G(fer ehr Spirit." Rh Er.

ties.
One of the clearest expositions of the holiness
doctrine of faith healing is found in R. Kelso Carter's
The Atonement for Sin and Sickness; or, A Full Salva-
T c Sd.UL 14110 hi. owe. te If bore 001 .11121 10 1141 011n
ittr tfay." lifer tr if.
Tug 11m. lilmrAlf Cock our lragorATRAN Rod ban ^ut

tion for Soul and Body, published in 1884. Carter kkort.ro "Mori A: 17.

pointed out that the church "has been limiting the

atonement of Jesus Christ." While sin and sickness are . *ALP T ><ACT ft vsn-waynar

from the devil, holiness and health are from God. Nip., 1.1.41 0..14.,
.11 A.. FE r,
At y..

Building upon Psalm 103:3 ("who healeth ALL thy .

diseases"), Carter developed the thesis that "God now

heals bodily sickness, precisely as He now heals soul R. Kelso Carter's book expounded the holiness doc-
sickness, by His power alone, unaided by any [medi- trine of faith healing.

FAITH HEALING 7
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

cal] means whatever; and that He does it through and

by virtue of the perfect Atonement of Jesus Christ."
Building upon a theory of the dual nature of man,
Carter developed a dual theory regarding the effects of The Ministry of Healing
the atonement. The atonement, he argued, saves man
from afflictions of both body and soul. He pronounced
any attempt to explain faith healing by natural law as MirarIrra of Care in AU Ages

"radically wrong, and as very dangerous to the spirit of

childlike faith. . . . A 'son of God,' must be content to
take his Father's word, without any endorsement."i9 MT

Carrie Judd was much of the same mind as Carter. A. J. Gordon

In 1881 she penned: "Our part is simply to reckon our
prayer as answered, and God's part is to make faith's
reckonings real. This is by no means a question of
feeling faith, but of acting faith. . . . Christ bore our
sickness as well as our sins, and if we may reckon
ourselves free from the one, why not from the other?"
Like Carter, she also taught in her Prayer of Faith
(1880) that the use of medicine or relying on human
help demonstrated a lack of faith and sinful unbelief. Fleming H. Revell Company

Christ is the Great Physician of both soul and body.20

Another influential treatment of the topic was A.
B. Simpson's Gospel of Healing (1888). Coming very
close to the Adventist's post-1888 interest in the cen-
trality of the redemptive power of Christ and faith in
Him, Simpson builds his argument upon Matthew's
interpretation of Isaiah 53:4: "Himself took our infir-
mities, and bare our sicknesses" (Matt. 8:17) on the
cross. Both redemption and divine healing were
accomplished on the cross. Man must accept the
accomplished provision by faith since it is always
God's will to heal. While the symptoms of disease
may not immediately disappear, they should be viewed
as "trials of faith." "Simply ignore them and press
forward, claiming the reality, at the hack of and below
all symptoms. Remember the health you have claimed
is not your own natural strength, but the life of Jesus
manifested in your mortal flesh."21
Finally, A. J. Gordon's Ministry of Healing (1882)
should be noted in anticipation of E. I. Waggoner's
later emphasis on the vicarious nature of the healing
aspect of the atonement. Reflecting on Matthew 8:17,
Gordon writes that "the yoke of his cross by which he
lifted our iniquities took hold also of our diseases; so
that it is in some sense true that as God 'made him to
be sin for us who knew no sin,' so he made him to be
sick for us who knew no sickness.... In other words the
passage seems to teach that Christ endured vicariously
our diseases as well as our iniquities."22
This short overview of holiness teachings on faith
healing demonstrates that the Adventists were in tune
A. J. Gordon's book anticipated E. J. Waggoner's
emphasis on the vicarious healing aspects of the
atonement.
with the ideas of contemporary faith healers, even
though they did not agree with all of their theology.
Because of these theological differences, the Advent-
ists consistently found the holiness faith healers falling
short of the test of Isaiah 8:20 ("to the law and to the
testimony: if they speak not according to this word, it
is because there is no light in them"). According to the
February 23, 1892, Review, they were therefore an ex-
pression of the type of false healers whose very pres-
ence foreshadowed the pouring out of the true gift in
the latter rain.23 On the other hand, however, the
Adventist faith healers in the early 1890s were appar-
ently quite willing to adopt many of the faith healing
"truths" which the devil had carefully wrapped in the
deceptive package of an erring theology.
December 1891 saw the Battle Creek situation
take a new turn. For one thing, Dr. Kellogg experi-
enced a serious illness. While his recuperation period
gave him time to think and deepen his Christian
experience, it also meant that he was absent from the
sanitarium for an extended period. During his ab-
sence, Kellogg claimed, two of his most trusted physi-
ciansDrs. Neall and Beilhart"became such thor-
ough converts of the doctrines taught by Eid. Jones and

8 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

Prof. Prescott that they undertook to carry out exactly
what they were taught." Thus Dr. Neall began advis-
ing patients that they did not need treatment, but
should have "faith" that the Lord would heal them. As
a result of the "general disturbance" they caused in the
hospital, both physicians had been released from em-
ployment.24
As Kellogg saw it, this faith healing "thing is
becoming epidemic." He reacted in two ways. The
first was to institute prayer sessions for the sick in the
sanitarium. The second was to meet with Jones on
January 9, 1892, "to carefully avoid a war and to have
a friendly talk" in case Jones's position had been mis-
represented to him and, as was probable, his had been
misrepresented to Jones.25
Complicating the faith healing difficulty between
Jones, Prescott, and Kellogg, was the fact that the
doctor was upset because they were not solidly behind
health reform, a problem that had aggravated more
people than Kellogg. The doctor was particularly out
to stop the use of pickles and vinegar, in addition to
flesh foods, in the college cafeteria. In his eyes,
vegetarians were not adequately catered to by the
college. Beyond that, he and Prescott were locked in
battle over the weighty issue of "fried carrots" being
served at the college. He just could not fathom why
two or three hundred students had to suffer because of
"one man's obstinate refusal to see the light.26
The health reform issue was intimately related to
the faith healing controversy. They were inextricably
linked, and, as we shall see, when one problem was
solved, the other was also.
Kellogg's meeting with Jones and Prescott on
January 9 was but the beginning of a drawn-out process
of reconciliation. From Kellogg's perspective the first
meeting was a dismal failure. Jones and Prescott left
his office still holding that if persons had faith they
would be healed. Kellogg had hoped to convince them
that in nearly every instance in which prayer had been
offered for the sick there had been a failure, but he was
unsuccessful. His antagonists merely replied that
failure resulted because "they did not have faith.""
On the other hand, the January 9 meeting between
the leaders of the disputing factions did set the stage for
a clearing of the air. In the ensuing weeks Prescott
spent several evenings through the midnight hours
studying the Bible and the positions of Jones and
Waggoner with Kellogg. Both the doctor and the

When A. T. Jones spoke in the Battle Creek Tabernacle on faith healing, he "righted the thing up from all sides,"
speaking against both the abuse and the neglect of the gift of healing.

FAITH HEALING 9
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
General Conference president looked back to those
studies as being pivotal in Kellogg's experience. As
might be expected, it appears that the doctor was
giving Prescott a few lessons at the same time. Soon
after the January 9 meeting Jones preached on faith
healing in the Tabernacle, and, according to W. A.
Colcord (secretary of the General Conference), "righted
the thing up from all sides." On one side, Jones spoke
out against those who had abused the gift, noting that
those who had made God a mere servant in the matter
had acted wickedly, On the other side, he condemned
those connected with the sanitarium who claimed that
faith healing had been superceded by the health work.28
The date of Jones's sermon is extremely signifi-
cant, since it was given before Ellen White's counsel
on faith healing arrived from Australia. It therefore
indicates that Prescott, Jones, and their colleagues
were not as extreme as their "followers." The January
9 consultation had indeed had a clarifying effect, but
there was still a great distance between Kellogg and
Jones and Prescott.
Ellen White penned her first reply to Kellogg's
request for a public statement regarding faith healing
on January 21, 1892, and it had arrived in Battle Creek
by March 10. Her approach to the topic was balanced.
p charges that the doctor would subsequently deny.) She
fit
"The path of presumption," said Ellen White, "lies
right along side of the path of faith."
10 SUMMER, 1990
Noting that "the path of presumption lies right along
side of the path of faith," she wrote that she was in
favor of both prayer for the sick and the establishment
of sanitariums where they could have proper medical
treatment. "Let no one yield to the suggestions of the
enemy of all righteousness and think that because we
are near the end of all things, we can have faith, and
have all our infirmities removed, and that there is no
need for institutions for the recovery of health. Faith
and works are not dissevered." In praying for the sick
she wanted to be in God's will. Physical healing, as she
saw it, was not an unconditional aspect of the atone-
ment. There was only one way that she could pray for
the sick: "'Jesus, you understand all about this case. If
it is for the good of this soul, and for the glory of thy
name, raise this brother or sister to health.'"29
On March 11 Mrs. White wrote to Kellogg, indi-
cating that the issue of praying for the sick is a "very
delicate question" that would probably not be satisfac-
torily settled for many minds. Her position was, after
having prayed for the sick, to "work all the more
earnestly, with much prayer that the Lord may bless
the means which his own hand has provided.""
On April 15 Ellen White wrote the doctor again,
pointing out that not all was well with his own soul.
She implied that he and his fellow physicians in Battle
Creek had tended to exalt science above God and that
there was great danger in departing from the simplicity
of Bible faith in the power of God. (These were
had hoped that his sickness and his "gracious recovery
through the mercy of God" would have cleared up
much of the "fog" that had obscured his spiritual
vision. He needed, she indicated, to reach a higher
standard in spiritual things. She closed the letter by
entreating Kellogg "to come close to Jesus."3'
During the summer of 1892 Mrs. White sent two
more documents on the topic of praying for the sick to
Battle Creek. In these she highlighted the fact that
Christians must always pray that God's will be done in
healing, since "it is not always safe to ask for uncondi-
tional healing," and that health reform and faith heal-
ing go hand in hand. In other words, There is no use
asking for healing if one continues on in poor health
habits. Interestingly enough, Ellen White had been se-
riously ill during most of the faith-healing contro-
versy. Following her own advice for others, she
concluded in November 1892 that her illness had been
"a part of God's plan, and He always knows what is
best. I have had a rich experience during this long
illness. 1 have become better acquainted with the
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

Saviour.... The Lord Jesus was never more precious anyone who gave up medical treatment because of
to me than now." Counting her sickness a "privilege," faith in a bogus healing. At that point, Kellogg
she was undoubtedly pondering the ways of God as she claimed that Jones capitulated, saying: "'How can I
sought to advise the church in the "delicate" spiritual read the sick man's mind?'"34
issues of human existence 32 Kellogg then took on Prescott who had been
Ellen White's counsel did much to close the claiming that he knew with certainty when a healing
breach caused by the faith-healing dissension. Writing had taken place because he had had instances in which
on March 10, 1892, "the Lord spoke to him
General Conference in what seemed to be
President 0. A. Olsen an audible voice." The
expressed his opinion doctor quickly dis-
that her January 21 com- patched that argument
munication would do to his satisfaction, but
much to relieve the ten- apparently not to that
sion. He felt bad that of Jones and Prescott,
Prescott, Jones, and E. since they would later
J. Waggoner had used use the "hearing-the-
"extreme expressions" voice" argument disas-
and had at times taken trously in their support
"extreme positions" on of Anna Rice's so-called
the topic. He feared that prophetic gift in 1894.35
their incautious stance While the April
would neutralize the meeting between Kel-
amount of good they logg, Jones, and Prescott
might otherwise have ac- might not have been a
complished? complete success, it was
Kellogg also wrote a turning point in the
to Mrs. White that he faith healing contro-
was appreciative of her versy. Prescott may
counsel on praying for have resumed his eve-
the sick, inferring that ning studies with Kel-
her position was the one logg.36
he held. In addition, the The developing
doctor reported on an- reconciliation did not
other meeting that he stop Kellogg from thun-
had had with Jones and dering to Ellen White
Prescott in April. He on May 27 that Jones
claimed that they had and Waggoner's teach-
scoffed at what Kellogg ings on faith healing
claimed was Ellen were still causing prob-
White's position on faith O.A. Olson believed Ellett White'sJanuary 21,1892 letter did lems. He did have to
healing, suggesting that much to close the breach caused by the faith-healing dissen- admit, however, that
they had Bible ground sion. there seemed to be a
for knowing beyond lull in the fanatical spirit
doubt when a person had been healed. Kellogg pressed that had dominated the issue for some months past.
Jones to the wall, claiming that Jones finally admitted About this same time he wrote that he was seeking to
that he really could not be absolutely certain regarding make the spiritual aspect of healing more prominent in
the success of a healing because "he could not tell the sanitarium.37
whether the individual had faith or not to accept the The fruits of Kellogg's mutual indoctrination with
blessing offered him." The doctor then forcefully Prescott were also becoming apparent. On June 20
argued that Jones would be responsible for the death of Kellogg joyfully reported that Prescott was becoming

FAITH HEALING 11
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
more favorable to health reform. He also expressed the
hope that "the time may not be far distant when the
chief apostles of the
doctrine of Right-
eousness by Faith
Brethren Jones and
Waggonerwill
begin to take a more
consistent position
in relation to health
and temperance
principles."38
By early Sep-
tember 1892 the
doctor was over-
joyed to report that
"the brethren seem
to be taking a more
sensible course in re- A. T. Jones
lation to praying for
the sick." The devil, he held, had un-
doubtedly urged them into an extreme
position to compromise their influ-
ence. Since the long talk he had had
with Jones and Prescott in April, Kel-
logg claimed that he had heard no
more of the extreme methods that they
had previously employed. "I have
good reason to believe that they have
reformed."" Anna Rice
The doctor, meanwhile, apparently
had been changed by the experience. 0. A. Olsen
noted that Kellogg spoke at the Michigan camp meet-
ing in the autumn of 1892 with more spirit-filled
earnestness than ever before. He told the congregation
that his sickness of the previous year had taught him his
dependence upon God. While Kellogg was relating his
experience, Olsen reported, "he became so affected at
times that he could not speak,just broke down." In
fact the whole congregation broke down. Jones and
Prescott, who were on the platform, "just wept for joy,
and praised God aloud for what the Lord was doing for
the Dr., and through him for the people.")
While the problem between Kellogg and Jones
and Prescott had been solved on the faith-healing front,
it had not been completely resolved with Prescott in
the area of health reform. In November and December
Kellogg was fuming at the slow progress Prescott was
making in admitting health principles into Adventist
schools. He was much happier with Jones, who he
wanted to employ at the sanitarium for a few months as
a teacher'"
12 SUMMER, 1990
If Kellogg was happy with Jones in December
1892, he must have been euphoric in early 1893 when
Jones preached at the General Conference session that
"God intends health reform . . . to prepare his people
for translation." Thus Jones had turned the position
some had held in 1890that faith healing was to
prepare people for translationon its head. Later in
the 1893 session Jones would tell the delegates that if
they practiced health reform they would not need to
ever take a vacation because they would not need to
rest. Noting that he worked day and night, he pro-
claimed that if "you get the health reform .. . it is all
nonsense about having a vacation."
Jones, in his usual manner, could be
just as extreme on any idea once he saw
its truthfulness. Meanwhile, both he
and Prescott were busy calling for the
fullness of the loud cry of the Holy
Spirit at the 1893 General Conference
session. While Prescott listed the gift
of faith healing among those soon ex-
pected to be poured out, his and Jones's
minds had rapidly moved onto a new
charismatic excitement. After all, Jones
had recently re-
ceived a "testi-
mony" from Anna
Rice who he be-
lieved was a second
Adventist prophet.
Unfortunately Olsen
would not let him
read the Rice testi-
mony to the dele-
gates. That bit of
charismatic excite-
ment would have to
wait until January
1 894.42
By the autumn of
W. W. Prescott 1893 Kellogg was
able to report that
"Jones is preaching stirring health and temperance
sermons at the camp-meetings," and that Prescott was
waking up to the health work also. In November Kel-
logg indicated that both men had not only corrected
their course on faith healing, but they "are straighten-
ing up as fast as they can on the health question." He
also rejoiced that they were "taking hold of the work in
good earnest," and that Jones was giving a series of
twelve lectures at the college on health subjects. "He
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
gets things badly twisted up sometimes when he under-
takes to teach anatomy and physiology; but he means
well." More important from the doctor's perspective
was the fact that many Adventists would be influenced
toward health reform by the influential Jones, who was
then at the height of his power.'"
The final stroke in the healing of the rift between
Jones, Prescott, and Kellogg came at the 1894 educa-
tional convention, during which Prescott finally sided
with Jones and took "a strong stand for the right" on
health reform. As a result, "it was voted that all the
schools should adopt a vegetarian diet."'" Not only
had these leading preachers swung around on the issue
of health reform, but the doctor was more than willing
to admit the occurrence of a bonafide healing. On
February 9, 1894, for example, the Battle Creek Daily
Moon reported that Mrs. T. A. Kilgore had been
"deprived of a tumor which the best physicians in the
country pronounced incurable, and the surgeons at the
sanitarium refused to operate upon . . . , knowing the
operation would result in certain death."
The sanitarium physicians had performed explora-
tory surgery, but had closed the incision once they saw
the extent of the problem. Kellogg wrote to Kilgore to
come quickly because his wife had but a short lime to
F. M. Wilcox took the healing to be an evidence of the
arrival of the loud cry power of the Holy Spirit.
MIRED BY FREER:-
1121, Another Alleged Siraelo lteported In
Thiseity.
!Wall* his-
7, epitomized Prom the Detroit Evening Novi.
axons on this Feb. 8Mrs. T. A.
!yea evening BArrri
Kilgore feels as if she had been raised
vtlatiot than
;oription rates from the dead. Through prayer she
door. or sent
lies been deprived of a tumor which the
postage paid.
levery Satur- best physicans in the country pro-
. largo SPago
genemt nem nounced incurable, and the surgeons at
LW per Teatx the sanitarium refuol to operate upon
it, knowing the operation would result
1 rroprietor.
in cartsdn death.
. -I was sent to the sanitarium last
B. 9, 1894
summer,' 'says Mrs. Kilgore, "to ,be
The Battle Creek Moon reported the healing of Mrs.
T. A. Kilgore
live. Mrs. Kilgore, in the meantime, "prayed long and
earnestly to God to remove all trace of tumor and
disease." While praying she "felt a peculiar prickling
sensation as if a mild current of electricity" passed
through her. Three weeks after the healing the Daily
Moon could report that she was "the picture of health."
Dr. Kellogg, the newspaper noted, was fully convinced
that she had been healed by God since her case was
beyond human help. "No one could have been more
surprised than I," the doctor claimed, "when she came
to my office and told me that she was well." Here was
a case that lent itself to verification by physical exami-
nation. Kellogg was quite happy to admit to the
miracle, minus any "fanatical" or illogical elements.
F. M. Wilcox took the healing to be an evidence of the
arrival of the loud cry power of the Holy Spirit.45
Between 1894 and the turn of the century the
Adventist healing movement was quiescent. By the
time it resurfaced in the late 1890s it had taken on new
configurations. Jones, for example, at the 1901 Gen-
eral Conference session stood firm against those "vi-
cious short cuts" that expected healing without follow-
ing health reform and medical treatment. "In nine
tenths of the cases we [ministers] are to teach them that
FAITH HEALING 13
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

there is something needed more than prayer; and in the it would be soon." Such testimonies went on for one or
other tenth case that with the prayer something is also two hours. The next morning, reported Haskell to
needed." That something, he had written in his 1899 Ellen White, "I arose early . . . and [publicly] read a
Review editorials, was "God's 'saving health' [which] testimony you sent me several years ago at the time
is, and always has been, an essential part of the Brethren Jones and Wagoner [sic] was [sic] carrying
everlasting gospel." He was not against faith healing, the praying for the sick to an extreme and it fully
but he was certain that God did not perform miracles described the meeting of the sick we had the night
for people who refused to correct the physical causes before.'"8
of their illness. He was fond of telling people that they Mrs. White's counsel once again helped quell the
did not need prayer. Rather, they needed to correct immediate fanaticism, but it did not kill it, as the
their health habits. Jones had learned important les- eruption of the holy flesh excitement of 1900 verifies.
sons from his faith-healing experience of the early By that year, health reform, the outpouring of the Holy
1890s. Perhaps he had "overlearned" his lesson, since Spirit, "perfect" living, and translation faith had been
by November 1898 he was teaching that health reform inextricably linked in the Adventist psyche. The true
is the avenue to perfect holiness. After all, he wrote, and the false continued to remain in tension. Perhaps
"perfect holiness embraces the flesh as well as the this is to be expected in a church that looks forward to
spirit?"46 the end of the world and the loud cry of the Holy Spirit
E. J. Waggoner seemed to be in agreement with in the near future.
Jones. At the 1899 General Conference session he was
preaching that the gospel of health is to fit Adventists
for translation. He did not ever expect to be sick since
Jesus "actually, literally" took our diseasP.s upon Himself.
"Just as you can not conceive of Jesus' losing a day's
work from sickness, so it ought not to be conceivable
of Seventh-day Adventists' losing a day's work from
sickness.... The life of Jesus in mortal flesh will do in
us what it did in him." Waggoner, in fact, expected to
"live forever" because of the benefits of the gospel of
health 47
While Jones and his colleagues had moved from a
stress on faith healing to placing the emphasis on
healthful living by the late 1890s, some of their readers
undoubtedly interpreted their ideas concerning perfect
holy flesh fit for translation in terms of their earlier
emphasis on faith healing. By 1899 the excitement
that evolved into the holy flesh movement the next
year was alive and well. Stephen N. Haskell, who had
spent most of the 1890s overseas, expressed shock at
many of the aberrant ideas he found upon returning to
the United States. "Since I have come over to this
country," he wrote in October 1899, I "find such queer
doctrines preached... , Some of the strangest doctrines
I have heard is [sic] the Seal of God cannot be placed
on any person of grey Hairs [sic], or any deformed
person, for in the closing work we would reach a state
of perfection both physically and spiritually, where we
would be healed from all physically [sic] deformity The fanatical elements of the faith-healing movement
and then could not die. . . . One woman said how resurfaced in the late 1890s. S. N. Haskell was shocked
convincing it would be to her friends to see her return to hear one woman expecting her gray hair to return to
home with her hairs all restored [in color] and believed its youthful color.

14 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
NOTES
ID. T. Jones to 0. A. Olsen, June 8, 1890.
20.T. Jones to 0. A. Olsen, June 13, 8, 1890.
J. H. Kellogg to W. C. While, Oct. 2, 1891.
4 J. H. Kellogg to 0. A. Olsen, Jan. 8, 1892; 0. A.
5 D. T. Bourdeau, "Praying for the Sick," Review and
Herald, Vol. 67 (Dec. 9, 1890), 754; (Dec. 23, 1890),
786-87.
6 W. C. White to Mary C. Mortensen, Aug. 4, 1891; A.
T. Jones to W. A. Colcord, Aug. 21, 1891.
'J. N. Loughborough to 0. A. Olsen, Aug. 25, 1891;
0. A. Olsen to Eld. E. H. Gates et a!, Sept. 21, 1891.
8.1. H. Kellogg to E. G. White, Aug. 23, 1891.
9W. A. Colcord to 0. A. Olsen, Oct. 1, 1891.
1.1. H. Kellogg to W. C. White, Oct 2, 1891.
"J. H. Kellogg to W. C. White, Oct. 2, 21, 1891.
12.1. H. Kellogg to W. C. White, Oct. 2, 1891.
130. A. Olsen to W. C. White, Oct. 9, 1891.
14A. O. Tait, "Frauds in Faith-Healing," Review and
Herald, Vol. 68 (Oct. 21, 1891), 642.
11See George R. Knight, From 1888 to Apostasy: The
Case of A. T. Jones (Washington, D.C.: Review and
Herald Publishing Assn., 1987), 75-88.
16.T. H. Kellogg to W. C. White, Oct. 21, 1891.
'7J. H. Kellogg to 0. A. Olsen, Jan 10, 1892; J. H.
Kellogg to W. C. White, Oct. 21, 1891.
11See Knight, From 1888 to Apostasy, 167-71. Jones,
Waggoner, and Prescott's views on church organization
(let the Holy Spirit rule) were also holiness views,
although that was not indicated in the book. See also,
George R. Knight, "Spiritual Revival and Educational
Expansion," Adventist Review, Vol. 161 (March 29,
1984), 8-11.
19 R. Kelso Carter, The Atonement for Sin and Sick-
ness; or, A Full Salvation for Soul and Body (Boston,
Willard Tract Society, 1884), 2, 6, 17-19, 214, 24-25.
2Carrie F. Judd, "Faith Reckonings," Triumphs of
Faith, January, 1881, 2-3, in Donald W. Dayton, Theo-
logical Roots of Pentecostalism (Grand Rapids, MI: Zon-
dervan Pub. House, 1987), 126; Carrie F. Judd, The
Prayer of Faith (Chicago: Fleming H. Revell, 1880), 83,
82.
21 A. B. Simpson, The Gospel of Healing, (New York:
Word, Work and World Publishing Co., 1888), 12-16,
27-28, 36-37.
22 A. J. Gordon, The Ministry of Healing: Miracles of
Cure in All Ages (Brooklyn: Christian Alliance, 1882),
16-17.
23E. W. Webster, "Faith-Cure," Review and Herald,
Vol. 69 (Feb. 23, 1892), 116.
24 J. H. Kellogg to E. G. White, Dec. 28, 1891; W. A,
Colcord to W. C. White, Dec. 23, 1891; J. H. Kellogg to
W. C. White, Jan. 27, 1892; cf. J. H. Kellogg to W. C.
White, Mar. 27, 1892.
25J. H. Kellogg to W. C. White, Jan. 27, 1892; J. H.
Kellogg to E. G. White, Dec. 28, 1891; J. H. Kellogg to
0. A. Olsen, Jan. 8, 1892.
26
Olsen to F. D. Starr, Aug. 14, 1891; see also. Gilbert M.
Valentine, "William Warren Prescott: Seventh-day Ad-
ventist Educator," 2 vols. (Ph.D. dissertation, Andrews
University, 1982), 94-96.
27J. H. Kellogg to 0. A. Olsen, Jan. 10, 1892; J. H.
Kellogg to W. C. White, Jan. 27, 1892; cf. W. A. Colcord
to 0. A. Olsen, Feb. 12, 1892.
29. H. Kellogg to E. G. White, May 25, Sept. 9, 1892;
J. H. Kellogg to W. C. White, Sept. 9, 1892; 0. A. Olsen
to E. G. White, Sept. 28, 1892; W. A. Colcord to D. T.
Jones, Feb. 7, 1892.
29E. G. White to the Brethren and Sisters in Battle
Creek, and to all who need these words, Jan. 21, 1892.
11'E. G. White to J. H. Kellogg, Mar. II, 1892.
31
E. G. White to J. H. Kellogg, Apr. 15, 1892; J. H.
Kellogg to E. G. White, May 27, 1892.
32 E. G. White, "Prayer for the Sick," MS 26A, Aug. 5,
1892; E. G. White to J. H. Kellogg, Aug. 5, 1892; E. G.
White to A. T. Robinson, Nov. 7, 1892.
130. A. Olsen to E. G. White, Mar. 10, 1892.
34.1. H. Kellogg to E. G. White, Apr. 21, 1892.
"Ibid.; Knight, From 1888 to Apostasy, 104-16; cf. J.
H. Kellogg to 0. A. Olsen, Jan. 10, 1892.
36J. H. Kellogg to E. G. White, May 25, 1892.
37J. H. Kellogg to E. G. White, May 27, 25, 1892.
31J. H. Kellogg to W. C. White, June 20, 1892.
19J. H. Kellogg to W. C. White, Sept. 9, 1892; J. H.
Kellogg to E. G. White, Sept. 9, 1892.
40. A. Olsen to E. G. White, Sept. 28, 1892.
41 J. H. Kellogg to 0. A. Olsen, Nov. 9, 1892; Dec. 26,
1892; cf. J. H. Kellogg to E. G. White, Jan. 24, 1893.
42A. T. Jones, "The Third Angel's Message," General
Conference Bulletin, Vol. 5 (1893), 88-89, 515, 461.
43J. H. Kellogg to 0. A. Olsen, Sept. 19, Nov. 19,
1893; cf. W. C. White to J. H. Kellogg, Sept. 20, 1893. J.
H. Kellogg to W. C. White, Nov. 2, 1893; cf. July 17,
1893. See also, Hjalmar Rued Noland, Adventist Heri-
tage, 11 (Spring 1986), 53.
"J. H. Kellogg to E. G. White, Aug. 10, 1894.
45"Cured by Prayer," Battle Creek Daily Moon, Feb.
9, 1894; F. M. Wilcox to 1. H. Kellogg, Feb. 8, 1894.
A. T. Jones, General Conference Bulletin, Vol. 4
(1901), 452; IA. T. Jones], Review and Herald, Vol. 76
(Nov. 7, 1899), 720; Nov. 14, 1899, 736; Nov. 22, 1898,
752.
47E. J. Waggoner, Genera! Conference Bulletin, Vol.
3 (1899), 53.
'Knight, From 1888 to Apostasy, 56-60, 169-71; S.
N. Haskell to E. G. White, Oct. 3, 1899.
FAITH HEALING 15
16 SUMMER, 1990
 Counsel to a Nervous
Bridegroom

By Roger W. Coon

E
lien G. White was not only possessed of a deliciously
lively, vibrant sense of humor,t she was also a warm,
gentle-hearted Christian woman, wife and mother. Hers
was an exceedingly robust, down-to-earth humanity,
which was never better illustrated than in some cogent advice given
to an exceedingly nervous 26-year-old bridegroom, Daniel T.
Bourdeau, on his wedding night in 1861.
Daniel, with his brother Augustin C. (one year older), lived in
Bordoville, Franklin County, Vermont where Daniel had been
born on December 28, 1835.3 This little hamlet in northwestern
Vermont, a dozen miles northeast of the county seat of St. Albans,
and another dozen miles south of the Canadian border, drew its
name from some illustrious forebears of these two brothers. They,
in turn, would themselves achieve a certain fame as pioneer leaders
in the early, formative days of the Seventh-day Adventist Church
in the mid-19th century.
In 1855, Daniel, at the age of 20, was teaching in some of the
eastern townships of "Lower Canada" and doing missionary work
for the Baptist Church into which he had been baptized at the age
of 11, when disquieting news reached his ears. His parents and
brother, he learned, had accepted the teachings of and joined the
membership of a small, strange ex-Millerite "offshoot" which five
years later would take the denominational title of "Seventh-day
Adventist."
Daniel was acutely distressed, believing that his family down in
Vermont had been badly misled and deceived. He determined to
fortify himself with unassailable arguments against this cult, the

NERVOUS BRIDEGROOM 17
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

better to rescue these deluded loved ones.

In the course of his research, he chanced
to have an encounter with a Roman Catholic
priest. During their conversation, the cleric
startled Daniel by siding with the Bourdeau
family, agreeing that the Church of Rome
had, indeed, changed the observance of the
Seventh-day Saturday to Sunday. And, as if
to add insult to injury, the priest went on to
affirm stoutly that the Pope had both the
authority and power to bring it off!
Incredulous at this blatant claim, as he
viewed it, Daniel was both suspicious and
curious. He now realized that he would
have to examine this question most care-
fully. Letters from the family, giving rea-
sons for their new-found faith, presented a
beautiful chain of truth. And, honest man
that he was, Daniel T. Bourdeau shortly The Seventh-day Adventist Church in Bordoville, Vermont, traces its
thereafter himself accepted the Three An- roots to the Bourdeau brothers. It is still in active use today.
gels' Messages of Revelation 14 as his own
personal credo.4

REFUTATION

FORTY - FOUR SO - CALLED OBJECTION'S

ABLINNT

THE ANCIENT SABBATH

LLBD

CRITICAL AND PRACTICAL THOUGHTS ON THE LAW AND

SABBATH, AND ON THE GREEK OF
CERTAIN PASSAGES.

By ELD. D. T. BOLIRDEAU.

"And they mend onto Him certain of the Pherteeee owl of the netatheek
to catch Hint in his words.' 1i4R ; 18.
`. Therefore to him that knoweth M do good, gad 'Meth It not, to him it le
gin." Jac 4 :17.

ic'v EC 3.Nt at H EC RA LID.

Mama cuailr, MICH.
PACIFIC PRESS, OAKLAND, CAL.

1887.

Daniel T. Bourdeau

18 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

The Daniel T. Bourdeau family were among the first French-speaking people to embrace the Advent message.
Marion Saxby Bourdeau (left) is shown with her husband Daniel (center) and their two children, Augustine J. S.
Bourdeau and Patience Bourdeau-Sisco. A.I. S. died tragically in 1915.

The Bourdeau Brothers, thus, are believed to have
become the first of French descent to have joined the
SDA church.5
Although now officially a member of this denomi-
nation, Daniel was stillto use his own wordsan
"unbeliever in the visions," but this would change on
Sunday morning, June 21,1857, when the 22-year-old
convert witnessed Ellen White in vision at the Buck's
Bridge Adventist church in New York.
Responding to James White's invitation to examine
his wife in the vision state, young Daniel, seeking
to satisfy my mind as to whether she breathed or
not, I first put my hand on her chest sufficiently long
to know that there was no more heaving of her lungs
than there would have been had she been a corpse. I
then took my hand and placed- it over her mouth,
pinching her nostrils between my thumb and forefin-
ger, so that it was impossible for her to exhale or
inhale air, even if she had desired to do so. I held her
thus with my hand about ten minutes, long enough for
her to suffocate under ordinary circumstances. She
was not in the least affected by this ordeal .6
And writing about this unusual experience on Feb-
ruary 1, 1891, at the age of 55, Bourdeau remarked that
"since witnessing this wonderful phenomenon, I have
not once been inclined to doubt the divine origin of her
visions."'
Shortly thereafter, Daniel had the opportunity of
making the personal acquaintance of James and Ellen
White during a visit to Battle Creek, Michigan. And he
improved the time during this visit to the Adventist
"Jerusalem" in studying and trying his hand at writing.
He wrote a number of persuasive pamphlets upon vari-
ous aspects of what was then called "present truth."
Some were penned in the French, in which he was most
fluent, and some in English. These were well received,
and with the encouragement of his initial modest suc-
cess, he proceeded to translate several English vol-
umes into French. But he continued to devote most of
his writing time to articles for SDA periodicals.
His missionary outreach further broadened with a
venture into public evangelistic labors, and at the age
of 23, Daniel T. Bourdeau was ordained to the gospel
ministry of his church.

NERVOUS BRIDEGROOM 19
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

He quickly discovered his need (and the un- a closed bedroom door adjoining the room
doubted advantage) of a co-laborer in his the Whites were to share.
work; and after becoming acquainted Taking in the situation at a glance,
with Miss Marion J. Saxby, he could Ellen fixed Daniel with a steady
vouch for the veracity and wisdom of gaze, and earnestly yet kindly spoke
Solomon's dictum, "Whoso findeth a to him in her characteristically forth-
wife findeth a good thing" (Proverbs right manner. Motioning in the
18:22). direction of the closed door, she
Daniel and Marion were duly mar- said gently, "Daniel, inside that
ried in 1861 at Bakersfield, five miles , room there is a frightened young
from the ancestral homestead of woman in bed totally petrified with
Bordoville, in a private home.8 James fear. Now you go in to her right
White, who had just turned 40 (and 411; now, and you love her, and you com-
was only 15 years older than the fort her. And, Daniel, you treat her
bridegroom), happened to be gently, and you treat her tenderly,
in the area, so he consented and you treat her lovingly.
to perform the marriage It will do her good."
ceremony. His wife Ellen, And then, with just a trace
33, agreed to honor the oc- of a smile on her face, Ellen
casion by offering a prayer added, "And, Daniel, it will
of blessing to conclude the do you good, too!"
service. Ellen White was a woman
As the nuptials were of great humanity, of great
celebrated rather late in the compassion, of great under-
day, the newlyweds decided standing, and of great char-
to postpone their departure ity. She was possessed of a
on the honeymoon trip until The image of a sm iling Ellen White is consistent with her very large heart. She un-
the next day, accepting use of witty remar ks to ease the embarrassment of others. derstood instinctivelyand
instead the invitation of sympatheticallythe emo-
their host to tional needs, as
spend their first well as the trau-
night as man and matic distress, of
wife in the home a terrified bride
where the cere- and an exceed-
mony had taken ingly nervous
place. The bridegroom.
Whites were also And she dealt not
overnight house- only warmly and
guests there. humanly, but
About 9 p.m., also sensibly, in
as Ellen went this situation in
upstairs to her a manner that
room before re- was forever af-
tiring, she discov- ter appreciated
ered an exceed- by both of the
ingly nervous 25- couple.
year-old bride- Daniel
groom pacing up and Marion la-
and down the bored together in
hallway outside ministry, some-
Daniel T. Bourdeau Marion. Saxby

20 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

The triangular park in front of the old central building of the General Conference in Takoma Park was the site
of an accident in 1915. In that year lightning struck the giant oak that once stood in the circle to the right. Then
it struck again, with tragic results.
times with his older brother, A. C. Bourdeau. They
served variously in Canada, the New England states,
and New York, before going west to California with J.
N. Loughborough to open new work in the Golden
State. They also pioneered in several other western
states before returning east.
The Bourdeaus twice served as a missionary team
in Europe, for a total of seven years. In 1876, during
their first term, Daniel spent much of his time working
with our first SDA missionary to Europe, John Nevins
Andrews, in both editorial activities and in public
evangelism.
During the second term (1882) he and his brother
A.C. worked in France, Switzerland, Rumania, Cor-
sica, Italy, and Alsace-Lorraine. Their success was
little short of phenomenal; sometimes an entire con-
gregation of Sunday-keepers, together with their pas-
tor, would become converted to the Adventist faith!
Daniel Bourdeau died in Grand Rapids, Michigan,
on June 30, 1905, six months shy of the age of 70. He
was survived by his wife Marion, and their two chil-
dren: Dr. Patience S. Bourdeau-Sisco, medical direc-
tor of an Adventist sanitarium in Grand Rapids, who
also doubled as medical superintendent of the West
Michigan Conference; and Augustine J. S. Bour-
deau, missionary secretary of the California-Ne-
vada Conference, who was also connected with the
Pacific Press Publishing Company at Mountain
View, California, and the Review and Herald Pub-
lishing Association in Washington, D.C.'
This son survived the passing of his late father by
only 10 years. For, on July 19, 1915, on the day of
Ellen White's second funeral (of three)," Elder
Augustine J. S. Bourdeau, 40, met with a fatal acci-
dent that was as incredible as it was tragic.
The younger Elder Bourdeau had now made his
home in Takoma Park, Maryland, where he worked
in the Review and Herald Publishing house next
door to the General Conference world headquarters
of the church. On this particular day the city had
just experienced a tremendous thunder-and-light-
ning storm. When it appeared to have abated, Elder
Bourdeau, joined by his 10-year-old daughter, Mar-
guerite, and 15-year-old Edwin Andrews (grandson
of pioneer John Nevins Andrews), walked across
the street to survey the damage.

NERVOUS BRIDEGROOM 21
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

Bourdeau-the frightened bride-who came to

Margeurite's bedroom on the eve of Marguerite's own
wedding, in Baltimore, in 1925, to tell first-hand of her
interesting wedding experience 64 years earlier:

Your grandfather, D.T. Bourdeau, originally had in-

tended to remain a bachelorhe thought he could serve
the Lord best as an unmarried man. But Sister White
told him it would be better if he married and had a wife
to take care of him. He prayed about it and felt im-
pressed to ask me to become his wife.
On our wedding night, after Sister White told him to
come into my bedroom and to treat me gently and
lovingly, he nervously did so. He found me clad in my
long winter underwear, and I was facing the wall. And
I stayed that way for six months!'

Marion did not expand on the details of her celibate

stand-off to her granddaughter, but two children were
born of this union a few years later! But because she
shared this interesting incident from her honeymoon
with Marguerite in 1925, we today are the richer for
this insight into Ellen White's character and personal-
ity in the story of the prophet's counsel to a nervous
bridegroom on his wedding night!

Edwin Andrews, grandson ofl. N. Andrews, was one

of the unfortunate victims when lightning struck
twice.

There, in a park-like triangle of land (upon which

the present edifice of the Takoma Park Church was
built in the middle 1950s)12 they inspected a large oak
which had been growing on a spot which today lies di-
rectly beneath the pulpit of the Takoma Park Church.
This tree had, scant moments before, sustained a fatal
direct strike by lightning. Now, as the trio gathered
under its branches, lightning again struck at exactly the
same place, knocking all three to the ground.
Elder Bourdeau and young Andrews were killed in-
stantly.'3 Marguerite was injured so severely that she
carried scars on an immobilized wrist to the day of her
death at age 78 in 1983.
Marguerite Bourdeau Gilbert Fields alone survived
to tell her pastorthe writer of these linesof the Marion J. Saxby-Bourdeau
appreciation of her paternal grandparents, Daniel and
Marion Bourdeau for the wit and wisdom of Ellen
White. For it was Grandmother Marion Saxby-

22 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
NOTES
'Glen Baker, "The Humor of Ellen White,"Ad-
ventist Review, Vol. 164 (April 30, 1987), 8-10.
2The town name today appears on many maps
simply as "Bordoville."
3G. W. Morse, "The Passing of the Pioneers"
[obituary sketch of Daniel T. Bordeau], Review
and Herald, Vol. 82 (July 13, 1905), 17, 18.
4Ibid.
5"Daniel T. Bourdeau," Seventh-day Adventist
Encyclopedia (Washington, D.C.: Review and
Herald Publishing Assn., 1976), 177.
6Cited in J. N. Loughborough, Great Second
Advent Movement (Nashville: Southern Publish-
ing Assn., 1905), 210. Bourdeau inadvertently
missed the correct date in his statement by one
week. The actual date of the Buck's Bridge vision
was June 21, 1857; Bourdeau gives it as June 28th.
SDA's, historically, have not employed
physical phenomenon as proof in validating a
claimant to the prophetic gift, but, rather, have
merely seen it as evidence that one of the two great
supernatural powers of the universe is at work.
Ellen White repeatedly warned that counterfeit
prophets could and would perform supernatural
manifestations of a miraculous nature (e.g., Evan-
gelism, 610; 2 Selected Messages 48, 49, 76, 77,
86). Julit Judson recalls personally observing
Margaret Rowen (who claimed to be Ellen White's
successor) in Southern California in the mid 1920s,
in a trance state in which she allegedly received a
vision, and he emphatically affirmed shelike
Ellen White in visiondid not breath for a sub-
stantially long period of time. (Roger W. Coon
interview, Ramona, California, June 20, 1987).
8In a 1982 interview with this writer, cited be-
low, Marguerite Bourdeau Gilbert Fields incor-
rectly recalled the locale of the Bourdeau-Saxby
wedding of her grandparents as the home of James
and Ellen White in Battle Creek. However, the
D.T. Bourdeau obituary states that the nuptials
were performed "in the year 1861, at Bakersfield,
Vt." See G.W. Morse, "The Passing of the Pioneers,"
Review and Herald, Vol. 82 (July 13, 1905),
17,18. James and Ellen White were in Wolcott,
Vermont on Sabbath and Sunday, August 31 and
September 1, 1861. See Review and Herald, Vol.
18 (Aug. 27, 1861), 104; (Sept. 24, 1861), 132.
interview, Marguerite Bourdeau Gilbert Fields
(age 77), with Roger W. Coon, Takoma Park,
Maryland, 1982. [unfortunately, interview notes
neglected to include month and day]. Mrs. Fields
provided a three-page rough draft of the main
details of her memory statement at that time.
G.W. Morse, loc. cit.
"Ellen White's first funeral was held on the
lawn of her last residence, Elmshaven, at St.
Helena, California, on Sunday, July 18, 1915, two
days after her decease. The second funeral was
held at the California Camp Meeting at Richmond,
Monday, July 19. The third (and largest) funeral
was in the Battle Creek Tabernacle on Sabbath,
July 24. That funeral attracted a crowd believed to
have been in excess of 3,500. Arthur L. White,
Ellen G. White: The Later Eimshaven Years
(Washington, D.C.: Review and Herald Publish-
ing Assn., 1982), 432-38.
'2Groundbreaking for the present Takoma Park
Church sanctuary took place on September 17,
1950. The first service in the new edifice was held
three years and one month later, on October 17,
1953. Dedication services were subsequently
conducted by R. R. Figuhr on November 17, 1956.
(Interview with Eunice Graham and Juanita Gra-
ham-Hodde, long-time members of the congrega-
tion, Takoma Park, Maryland, January 26, 1990.)
"C.M. Snow, "A Double Tragedy," Review
and Herald, Vol. 106 (July 29, 1915), 24. Virgil
Robinson, "Lightning Struck Twice," Guide, Vol.
19 (August 18, 1971), 8-10, 22.
"interview, Marguerite Bourdeau Gilbert Fields
(age 77), with Roger W. Coon, Takoma Park,
Maryland, 1982.
NERVOUS BRIDEGROOM 23
 THE CLIFFS OF ECHO CANON, UTAH.
24 SUMMER. 1990
BY THOMAS MORAN.
 A Letter to Elizabeth:
Ellen White's 1880 Trip to California

By Ellen G. White, with Notes by Ron Graybill

s Ellen White travelled by rail from Michigan to Califor-

nia in February, 1880, she penned a letter to her twin
sister, Elizabeth "Lizzie" Bangs. When she finished
Athe letter, she asked Lizzie to have it copied by a niece,
Clara Foster. Both Ellen White's and Clara Foster's copy of the
letter have survived. Soon after she arrived in California in 1880,
Mrs. White edited Clara's draft of the letter and, after further
additions and deletions, portions of it were published as "Incidents
by the Way," in the Review and Herald. Ellen White's original
letter is presented here in a corrected transcription prepared by the
E. G. White Estate. In other words, it has been edited to conform
to modern standards of spelling, punctuation, and grammar.
On her journey, Mrs. White was able to identify the sights she
viewed from her window by using the popular railway guide,
Henry T. Williams' Pacific Tourist. She copied or paraphrased
most of her scenic descriptions from this guide. This article cites
many of the original guidebook passages in footnotes. This will
provide modern readers more information and enable them to
pinpoint the location of the scenes Mrs. White describes.

LETTER TO ELIZABETH 25
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
On the train enroute to California, Feb. 26, 1880'
D
ear Sister Lizzie'
After I left you Monday, I was very sick.
Tuesday, nervous and suffering with head-
ache, unable to sit up. Tuesday night we
arrived at Council Bluffs. There we stopped off to
visit Sister Milnor.' After walking about half
a mile,4 found her not at home. I had not
tasted food through the day and was still
suffering with nervous headache.
We walked hack to a hotel, the
nearest one we could find. It was
not very promising. We were shown
to our roomstwo very small rooms
above the kitchen. In the rooms
there was only a small window
in each room. The scent of the
cooking had full access to these
rooms, with no current of air to
take away the nauseating smell
of ham, pork, onions, cabbage,
and all kinds of scents. If I had
not heretofore been most thor-
oughly disgusted with pork, I
should have been now. I could
scarcely refrain from vomiting. I
became sick and faint, but my good
daughter Marys opened the window
as far as possible and moved our bed
so that the head of it was close by the
window. The bed being quite nice,
we slept well and felt refreshed in the
morning, notwithstanding unpleas- Ellen White's twin sister, Elizabeth Bangs,
never became a Seventh-day Adventist,
ant odors. although the two remained on good terms.
1. Mrs. White, her son Willie While, his wife Mary
Kelsey White, and S. N. Haskell left Battle Creek on
Monday, Feb. 23, 1880 for a trip to California. Review and
Herald, Vol. 55 (Feb. 26, 1880), 144.
2. Elizabeth Harmon-Bangs, Ellen White's twin sister
who lived in Portland, Maine, was apparently visiting her in
Battle Creek just before she left on this trip.
3. Sister Milnor has not been identified.
4. When an article based on this letter was later published
in the Review, Mrs. White said she took a street car to the
house. The trip apparently involved both walking and a
street car ride. Ellen G. White, "Incidents By the Way,"
Review and Herald, Vol. 55 (June 17, 1880), 385. Further
mentions of the Review refer to this article unless otherwise
stated.
26 SUMMER, 1990
We took the transfer car to Omaha.6 We enjoyed
our breakfast very much. There came into the depot a
woman about forty years old, followed by a large flock
of children. One boy, about ten years old, went out on
the platform. His mother went after him and came
dragging him in, he resisting at every step. She pushed
him with violence into the seat, bringing his head
with considerable force against the hack of
the seat, really hurting the lad. Then came
screech after screech, equaled only by
the screaming engine. His mother
threatened him, but to no purpose.
He was in for a regular war cry.
When he became tired out, then
he lowered his voice to a mo-
notonous long-drawn-out drawl-
ing cry just for the purpose of
being persevering and revenge-
ful.' Here the mother, I judge,
was as much to blame as her
boy. The boy was stubborn.
She was passionate.
I conversed some with the
mother. She stated [that] the
boy refused to come in and threw
himself full length on the plat-
form. She then took him by force
and brought him in. Said she, "Oh,
if ] only had him alone in some place,
I would pound him well for this behav-
ior." I said that would not change his
inward feelings. Violence would
only raise his combativeness and
make him still worse. I think the
5. Mary Kelsey White, Ellen White's daughter-in-law,
was married to Willie White.
6. The Union Pacific, which Mrs. White was to board in
Omaha, Nebraska, refused to allow eastern trains to cross the
Missouri River from Council Bluffs, Iowa. Consequently,
travelers coming from the east had to transfer in Council
Bluffs to the Union Pacific's subsidiary bridge line, then
transfer again in Omaha to the cars on which they would
continue their journey west. See Randy Butler, "Overland by
Rail, 1869-1890," in Gary Land, ed., The World of Ellen
White (Hagerstown, Md.: Review and Herald Publishing
Assn., 1987), 65.
7. The Review version of this story says the boy contin-
ued to wail for "something like half an hour."
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

more calm the mother can keep at such times, however
provoking be the conduct of her children, she main-
tains her dignity and influence as a mother. She
assented that it might be so.
I inquired, "How many children have you?" She
answered, "Eleven," pointing to two bright-looking
little girls. "These are my youngestone is six, the
other four.' My oldest are nearly grown-up boys."'
She stated they were as a family on their way'" to
locate in Nebraska, where there was plenty of land to
keep the boys at work. Not a bad idea to give these
active, sharp, high-toned boys employment. Nothing
so good as plenty to do in open air to keep children
from being ruined with the temptations and allure-
ments to evil in city life.
It was plain to be seen that the mother was fretful,
impatient, and harsh and severe. What wonder then
that the children should be unsubmissive and insubor-
dinate? These children, eleven in number, and the
husband, showed they felt the mother's power that
permitted no liberty of will. She would jerk one and
fret at another and twitch about another, and answer
her husband's questions with a firm tone.
This mother's mode of government set my mind on
a study. She forced them to self-assertion in various
improper ways, showing the mother's management
was a sorry failure. There were eleven bright, active
children. If the mother had the machinery oiled with
patience and self-command, as every mother should
have, if she had possessed the right spirit, she would
not have aroused the combative spirit of her ten-year-
old boy. All this mother seemed to know of govern-
ment was that of brute force. She was threatening,
intimidating. Her youngest children seemed [to] have
a fear to stir. Others looked hard and defiant. Some
looked ashamed and distressed.
I longed to preach a sermon to that mother. I
thought if that mother knew her responsibility as a

8. During the ten-year old's escapades, the rest of the 9. The Review version of this letter says the woman's
children, according to the Review , "sat demurely perched children ranged in age from "four to twenty-four years."
upon the seats, with their arms folded and their feet dan- 10. The Review says this family came from Iowa City,
gling." Iowa.

Passengers began their trip on the Union Pacific at Omaha. When Mrs. While was at the station here, a ten-year old boy
and his mother provided a lesson in how not to deal with troublesome behavior.

LE I I ER TO ELIZABETH 27
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
. ALF4, :91.1.1p1.11111:00..
"'.rim p,g4
. . .
Mrs. White's guidebook, The Pacific Tourist, said "The prairies. . .occasionally give place at night to the lurid play of the
fire-fiend. . .Full in the distance is seen the long line of bright blame stretching for miles."
mother, she would not pursue the course she had done
in that depot. Her burdens must necessarily be heavy,
but how much more weighty was she making them for
herself by her own lack of self-control. Every harsh
word, every passionate blow, would react upon her
again. If she were calm and patient and kind in her
discipline, the power of her example for good would be
seen in her children's deportment. How much that
mother needed the help of Jesus to mold the minds and
fashion the characters of her children. How many
souls such mothers will gain to the fold of Christ is a
question. I really do not believe they will gather one
soul to Jesus. They train, they rule, they ruin. But
enough of this.
We purchased our sleeping-car ticketsS16 to
Ogden." We should be two days and a half and two
nights in reaching there. We obtained two lower berths
and were told [that] if we had applied the day before we
could not have been accommodated. But the travel
was light from Omaha that day, which was much in our
favor.
On leaving Omaha we found ourselves and numer-
ous baskets and satchels well disposed of in an elegant
11. Ogden, Utah, was the western terminus of the Union
Pacific Railroad and the eastern terminus of the Central
Pacific.
12. Feb. 26, 1880.
13. The lunch was packed by the matron at the Battle
Creek Sanitarium, Battle Creek, Michigan. During this pe-
28 SUMMER, 1990
palace sleeper. Only 17 passengers in our car; no
babies to cry, no invalids to exclaim, "Please close the
ventilators; will you shut down that window?" We
were at perfect liberty to open and close windows for
our convenience. There was nothing especial to en-
gage our attention Wednesday night but the prairie
fires. These looked grand and awful. In the distance,
while the train is slowly moving onward, we see the
long belts of lurid flame stretching for miles across the
prairie. As the wind rises, the flame rises higher and
becomes more brilliant, brightening the desolate plains
with their awful brightness. We see, farther on, hay-
stacks and settlers' homes guarded with deep furrows
broken by the plow to protect their little homes. We
saw dark objects in the distance guarding their homes
from the fire fiend by throwing up embankments.
Thursday morning'2 we arose from our berths re-
freshed with sleep. At eight o'clock we took a portion
of the pressed chicken furnished us by the matron at the
sanitarium,'3 put the same in a two-quart pail, and
placed it on the stove; and thus we had good hot
chicken broth. The morning was very cold and this hot
dish was very palatable. I limited myself to only one
riod of her life, Mrs. White occasionally ate meat, especially
when travelling. She still considered herself a vegetarian
even though she did not become a tee-total vegetarian until
1894. See Roger Coon, Ellen G. White and Vegetarianism:
Did She Practice What She Preached? (Hagerstown, Md.:
Review and Herald, 1986).
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
meal each day during the entire journey. When the
cars stopped at stations any length of time, we im-
proved the opportunity by taking a brisk walk.
Generally, in approaching Cheyenne and Sherman
I have difficulty breathing. Thursday noon we were at
Cheyenne and it was snowing and cold. Could not
walk much that day. "All aboard" was sounded about
half past three, and again we were moving onward.
In nearing Cheyenne we were interested by the view
of the Rocky Mountains. Dark clouds obstructed our
view as we neared Laramie. We were having a hail-
storm. Occasionally the sunlight would break through
the clouds, striking full upon the mountaintops.
The cars move slowly and smoothly along, giving
14. At this point Mrs. White begins to draw interesting
facts and colorful descriptions from her guidebook. "The
difference in elevation between this place [Sherman] and
Cheyenne is 2,201 [not 2,001] feet, and distance nearly 33
miles. The average grade from Cheyenne is 67 feet per
mile. . ." Henry T. Williams, Editor, The Pacific Tourist.
Williams' Illustrated Trans-Continental Guide of Travel
(New York: Henry T. Williams, Publisher, 1878), 82.
15. "Dale Creek Bridgeis about two miles west of
The largest trestle on the Union Pacific carried trains across Dale Creek just west of Sherman, Wyoming. This frail-looking
iron structure replaced an earlier wooden bridge in 1876. It was dubbed "The Spider Web."
the passengers a fair chance to view the scenery. An
additional engine is added to help draw the train up, up
the summit of Sherman. We reached Sherman about
six o'clock and had no inconvenience in breathing.
The elevation between Cheyenne [and Sherman] is
2,001 feet; the distance nearly 33 miles. The ascend-
ing grade averages from Cheyenne 67 feet per mile."
The two engines puff and blow as if requiring a
powerful effort to breathe. At length the summit is
reached and the descent begins.
Two miles west of Sherman we cross Dale Creek
Bridge. It looks frail, as if incapable of sustaining the
ponderous train, but it is built of iron and very
substantial.'5 A beautiful, narrow, silvery stream is
Sherman. This bridge is built of iron, and seems to be a light
airy structure, but is really very substantial. The creek, like
a thread of silver, winds its devious way in the depths below,
and is soon lost to sight as you pass rapidly down the grade
and through the granite cuts and show sheds below. This
bridge is 650 feet long, and nearly 130 feet high, and is one
of the wonders on the great trans-continental route." Wil-
liams, Pacific Tourist, 82. The largest trestle on the Union
Pacific carried trains across Dale Creek west of Sherman,
LETTER TO ELIZABETH 29
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

winding its way in the depths16 below. The bridge is and crevice in the car. I slept, but awoke with a
650 feet long, 130 feet high, and is considered a suffocating scream. I found myself laboring hard for
wonderful affair in this route. We look in the valley breath, and the coal gas was so stifling I could not sleep
below and the settlements look like pigeon hoursdared not sleep. This was the
houses. We pass rapidly down the most disagreeable night that I had on
grade, through the snow sheds and the journey. In the morning felt
granite cuts. We have now, as better than I expected. We again
we pass on, a full view of the prepared our breakfast,2 mak-
Diamond Peaks of the ing a nice hot broth. Our
Medicine Bow Range.17 two tables were prepared,
They are, with their one in each seat, and we
sharp-pointed sum- ate our nice breakfast
mits, pointing heav- with thankful hearts.
enward, while their Porter, well-filled
sides and the rugged with silver donations,
hills around them are was very accommo-
covered with timber. dating, bringing lunch
When the atmosphere baskets, making
is clear, the Snowy room, and depositing
Range8 can be dis- our baggage with all
tinctly seen clothed in pleasantness. We are
their robes of perpetual known on the train. One
snow. A chilliness creeps says, "1 heard Mrs. White
over you as you look upon speak at such a meeting." The
them, so cold, so cheerless, and book agent, a fine young man
yet there is an indescribable gran- from Colorado, says he heard Mrs.
deur about these everlasting White speak in the large, mam-
mountains and perpet- moth tent in Boulder
ual snows.19 The Medicine Bow mountains of southern Wyoming were visible City.21 He was a resident
But night draws her from the train as it crossed the Laramie plains. of Denver. We have agree-
sable curtains around able chats with one and
us and we are preparing to occupy our berths for the another.
night. The wind was blowing strong against us, send- As we move on slowly over the great American
ing the smoke of our heating stove into every opening Desert," with no objects in sight except sage brush and

Wyoming. Originally, the span was built of timber, but Mrs.
White crossed on the "Spider Web," a fragile-looking iron
structure completed in 1876. Gerald M. Best, Iron Horses to
Promontory (San Marino, Ca.: Golden West Books, 1969),
193.
16. It is a measure of Ellen White's disregard for spelling
that even though this word was spelled correctly in the book
from which she was copying, she spelled it phonetically,
with a "b," in her original letter.
17. "Across these [the Great Laramie] plains, . rises in
full view the Diamond Peaks of the Medicine Bow Range.
They are trim and clear-cut cones, with sharp painted
summitsa fact which has given them their name, while
their sides, and the rugged hills around them, are covered
with timber." Williams, Pacific Tourist, 83.
18. "Still farther in the shadowy distance, in a south-
westerly direction, if the atmosphere is clear, you will see the
white summits of the Snowy Range---white with their robes
of perpetual snow. Even in the hottest weather experienced
on these plains, it makes one feel chilly to look at them, they
arc so cold, cheerless and forbidding." Williams, Pacific
Tourist, 83.
19. The final clause of this sentence, beginning with "and
yet" appears to have been added later, as if Mrs. White, who
loved the mountains, was not content with Williams' gloomy
comment about their "cheerless" look.
20. Mrs. White originally wrote "pressed chicken," then
crossed it out and interlined "breakfast."
21. Mrs. White had spoken in Boulder in July, 1879.
Review and Herald, Vol. 53 (Aug. 21, 1879), 70-71.
22. The term "Great American Desert" was applied to the
entire Great Plains by early explorers of that region. By Mrs.

30 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
distant mountain peaks, we seem more like a ship at
sea. The massive train, headed by our faithful steam
horse, moving along so grandly, seems like a thing of
life. You look occasionally back from the rear of the
cars upon the straight track hundreds of miles with
scarcely a curve, while wilderness and desolation meet
you whichever way you may look.
Passing Cheyenne we soon entered snow sheds,
constantly varying from light to darkness and from
darkness to light; was the only change for miles.23 I
had been growing stronger as I neared Colorado. We
were telegraphed to Ogden, soon after leaving Omaha,
for seats in the car for California, and our seats were
assigned us just as we were located in the car we leave.
Therefore, it is always best to secure good seats when
you take the palace car from Omaha, for that secures
you good seats all the trip. Now the tickets have to be
purchased at the ticket office before the baggage can
be taken into the car. We are all settled some time
before [the] sun has passed out of sight beyond the
mountains. We have additional passengers. There is
a tall, straight gentleman eyeing us critically. He has
his wife and child with him. His own hair is as dark as
the raven's wing, but his wife's hair is as white as I ever
saw human hair, curled in ringlets. It gave her a
singular appearance, not what I should call desirable.
She was a rather delicate looking woman.
This man was the wonderful worker in the temper-
ance cause, McKenzie.24 He has established an insti-
tution to treat inebriates in Boston, and is now visiting
California for the same object.25 He made himself
known to us, as he saw us all engaged in writing. He
had, I suppose, some curiosity to know who we were
White's time railway maps used the term "Great American
Desert" to label for the area of Utah west of the Great Salt
Lake. See map in 0. J. Hollister, Resources and Attractions
of Utah (Salt Lake City: A. Zeehandelaar, 1882), in the
Review version of this letter, the reference to the "Great
American Desert" has been moved to appear just before the
approach to the Sierra Nevadas.
23. In the Review this passage is altered to read: "Passing
Truckee in our descent on the apposite side [of the Sierras]
we enter snow-sheds. From light to darkness and from
darkness to light is the only change for miles." The confusion
apparently arose from the fact that Mrs. White did not write
her letter in one continuous chronological narrative, but
sometimes flashed back to describe earlier events.
24. McKenzie boarded the train in Ogden, Utah, having
just completed a series of temperance lectures in a Salt Lake
City theater (not in the Mormon Temple as Mrs. White
and what we were doing. He composed some verses
upon that evening sunset as he was seated by my side.
I will copy it for you. This great temperance man was
the most inveterate tobacco-user we ever saw. Oh,
what ideas of temperance!
Scenery viewed on Friday while approaching Ogden 26
At Green River27 is the place where specimens of
fossils, petrifactions, and general natural curiosities
are seen. Petrified shells and wood may be purchased
for a trifle. There is a high projecting rock, in appear-
ance like a tower, and twin rocks of gigantic propor-
Snow sheds kept the tracks clear through long winters.
"From light to darkness and from darkness to light was the
only change for miles," Mrs. White wrote.
reported in the Review). He is identified even in Salt Lake
City newspapers only as "Rev. McKenzie, of Boston," and
no further identification has been discovered, even in Boston
sources.
25. According to the Review, he had already obtained a
number of pledges for his California venture.
26. The scenic views described between Green River,
Wyoming, and Ogden, Utah, are viewed today by travelers
along Interstate 80 (Green River to Echo, Utah), and Inter-
state 84 (Echo to Ogden, Utah). In this area, these Interstate
highways follow, generally, the route of the old transconti-
nental railroad.
27. "Here (at Green River] is the head center for Rocky
Mountain specimens, fossils, petrifactions, etc., . . Mr.
Kitchen. .has on exhibition and for sale the specimens
alluded tosuch as beautiful moss agates, fossil fish, petri-
fied shells and wood..." Williams, Pacific Tourist, 101.
LETTER TO ELIZABETH 31
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

Lions." The appear- specimens of fish

ance of these rocks and curious leaves.
is as if some great The proprietor told
temples once stood us on a previous trip
here and their mas- he brought these two
sive pillars were left large rocks on horse-
standing as witness back eight miles.
of their former great- The rock did not
ness.29 There is a look so far, but he
rock called Giant's said that was the dis-
Club," and in pro- tance to get access
portions it is a giant. to it. There were in
It rises almost per- these split-off slabs
pendicularly, and it of rock feathers of
is impossible to climb birds, and other
up its steep sides. curiosities were
This is one of na- plainly seen. We
ture's curiosities. I look with curious
was told that its interest upon rocks
composition bears composed of sand-
evidence of its once- stone in perfectly
being located at the horizontal strata
bottom of a lake. This containing most in-
rock has regular teresting remains.
strata, all horizontal, These bluff rocks"
containing fossils of assume most curi-
plants and fish and ous and fantastic
curiously-shaped forms, as if chiseled
specimens of sea out by the hand of
animals. The plants `Its proportions are really colossal," said the Pacific Tourist of the art. They are in
appear like our fruit Giant's Club. "The rock is valuable for its curious composition, as is bears appearance lofty
and forest trees. evidences of having once existed at the bottom of a lake." domes and pinnacles
There are ferns and palms. The fish seem to he of a and fluted columns. These rocks resemble some ca-
species now extinct. thedral of ancient date, standing in desolation. The
A large, flat stone was shown us with distinct imagination here has a fruitful field in which to range.

28. "The high projecting tower north of the track, crown-
ing a bluff, is 625 feet higher than the river level below...
Other rocks, as 'The Sisters' and 'The Twin Sisters' will be
readily recognized by the passing traveler." Williams, Pa-
cific Tourist, 101.
29. "It seems as though some great temple once stood
here, or several of them, and in the wrecks of time, left their
gigantic pillars standing, as a reminder of their former
greatness." Williams, Pacific Tourist, 101.
30. "Giant's Club.This is fairly a giant in dimensions,
as its proportions arc really colossal. It rises with almost
perpendicular sides, and is really impossible to scale by
ascent. The rock is valuable for its curious composition, as
it bears evidences of having once existed at the bottom of a
lake. The rock lies in regular strata, all horizontal, and most
of these contain fossils of plants and fishes. The plants are all
extinct species, and closely allied to our fruit and forest
trees; among them, however, are some palms, which indi-
cate this to be, in original times, when the deposit was
formed, a very warm climate." Williams, Pacific Tourist,
102.
31. "The peculiar effects of stormy weather and flood, in
the past, has carved the bluff-lines into the most curious and
fantastic formslofty domes and pinnacles, and fluted
columns, these rocks resembling some cathedral of the olden
time, standing in the midst of desolation." Williams, Pacific
Tourist, 106.

32 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

In the vicinity of these rocks are moss agate patches.32

To stand at a distance from these wonderful-shaped
rocks, you may imagine some ruined citybare, deso-
late, but bearing their silent history to what was once."
We pass on quite rapidly to the Devil's Gate, a
canyon where the sweet water'" has worn through the
granite ridge. The walls are about 300 feet high. The
[water] runs slowly, pleasantly murmuring over the
rocks. We pass on, while the mountaintops rise per-
pendicular towards heaven, covered with perpetual
snows, while other mountaintops, apparently horizo-
nal, are seen 3S Here in passing we get some view of the
beauty and grandeur of the scenery in groups of moun-
tains dotted with pines.
In Echo Canyon are rocks curiously representing
works of art, [for example] the Sentinel Rock.36 The
average height of all the rocks of Echo Canyon is from
600 to 800 feet." The scenery here is grand and

32. "In this section [near Church Buttes] are found 'moss
agates,' in the greatest abundance. . ." Williams, Pacific
Tourist, 106.
33. "Standing upon one of the summits of the highest
point of the 'Bad Lands,' Hayden says, 'as far as they eye can
reach, .. It looks like some ruined city of the gods, blasted, At Devil's Gate in Utah, the waters of the Sweetwater
bare, desolate, but grave, beyond a mortal's telling. Wil- River have worn their way through a granite ridge.
liams, Pacific Tourist, 106.
34. Mrs. White's words "sweet water " refer to the
Sweetwater River. "Following upon the valley from Inde-
pendence Rock, and five miles north, is another celebrated
natural curiosity. The Devil's Gate, a canyon which the
Sweetwater River has worn through the Granite Ridge
cutting it at right-angles. The walls are vertical, being about
350 feet high, ... The current of the stream through the gate
is slow, finding its way among the fallen masses of rock, with
gentle, easy motion, and pleasant murmur." Williams, Pa-
cific Tourist, 110.
35. "View in the Uintah Mountains.The traveler, as he
passes rapidly through Echo and Weber Canyons, and casu-
ally notices the chain of mountains at the south.... Professor
Hayden says of this view, 'In the middle distance, . . is
Black's Fork, meandering through grassy, lawn-like parks,
the eye following it up to its sources, among the everlasting
snows of the summit ridge. The peaks or cones in the
distance, are most distinctly stratified and apparently hori-
zontal or nearly so, with their summits far above the limits
of perpetual snow. . Williams, Pacific Tourist, 110.
36. Williams' Pacific Tourist displays a picture of Sen-
tinel Rock in Echo Canyon, Utah. Williams, Pacific Tourist,
117.
37. "The massive rocks which form Echo Canyon, are of
Devil's Slide is composed of two parallel ledges of granite,
red sandstone, ... Their shapes are exceedingly curious, and
turned on their edges about fourteen feet apart.

LETTER TO ELIZABETH 33
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

beautiful. We see holes or caves worn by storm and much of the night. We passed Cape Hom" in the light
wind, where the eagles build their nests. This is called of the moon. The wintry scene in the Sierra Nevadas,
Eagle Nest Rock." Here the king of viewed by the light of the moon, is
birds finds a safe habitation to rear grand. We look 2,000 feet below. The
their young. The ruthless hand of man soft light of the moon shines upon the
cannot disturb them. We come to the mountain heights, revealing the grand
Thousand Mile Tree. Here hangs the pines and lighting up the canyons. No
sign giving us the distance from pen or language can describe the gran-
39
Omaha. Here we pass the wonderful deur of this scene. We preferred to
rocks called the Devil's Slide.4 It is enjoy this grand sight rather than to
composed of two parallel walls of sleep. In the morning, the last morn-
granite standing upon their edges. Be- ing upon the cars, we rejoice that we
tween these two walls are about 14 have nearly completed our week's trip,
feet. They form a wall about 800 feet protected by a kind Providence, and
running up the mountain. This looks receiving neither accident nor harm,
as if formed by art and placed in and hardly weariness. We are nearly
position, the rocks are so regularly to our journey's end.
laid. This is a wonderful sight, but we We learn we arrive in Oakland at
reach Ogden and night draws on. eleven o'clock. As we near Sacramento
Edward Stokes, who murdered rail-
Sabbath. All is quiet. We read our road magnate Jim Fisk, had aged we see the green grass, the fruit trees
Bible and write. Close by us sits the considerably when Mrs. White saw loaded with fragrant blossoms. We
notable Stokes,4' who murdered Fisk. him on the train to California. ride out of the winter of [the] Sierra
Our last night on the cars was spent Nevadas into summer. We find our
in sleeping some and in viewing the scenery. The friends waiting for us at the depot. We came an en-
moon was shining so clear and bright [that] Mary was tirely new route from Sacramento,'" which brought us
resting upon her elbow, looking out of the window in earlier. We met Edson and Emma with joy, also

their average height, 500 [not 600] to 800 feet." Williams,
Pacific Tourist, 122.
38. "The valley now narrows to a gorge, and we approach
Weber Canon proper. It has high bluffs on the left, with a
rocky castle towering up on the right.... High up on the face
of a bluff to the left, as you pass through the gorge, see the
little holes or caves worn by the winds, in which the eagles
build their nests. This bluff is called 'Eagle Nest Rock.'
Every year the proud monarch of the air finds here a safe
habitation in which to raise his young. It is beyond the reach
of men, . ." Williams, Pacific Tourist, 124.
39. "Thousand Mile Tree, Devil's Slide, &c.,on the
left side of the track. There it stands, spreading its arms of
green, from one of which hangs the sign which marks the
distance traveled since leaving Omaha." Williams, Pacific
Tourist, 124.
40. "'Devil's Slide'one of the most singular forma-
tions to be seen on the entire route from ocean to ocean. It is
composed of two parallel ledges of granite, turned upon their
edges, serrated and jutting out in places fifty feet from the
mountain side, and about 14 feel apart. It is a rough place for
any one; height about 800 feet." Williams, Pacific Tourist,
125.
41. Edward S. Stokes (c. 1840-1901) shot and killed Jim
Fisk, the railroad baron, in a lover's quarrel in New York in
1872. Although condemned to death at one point, Stokes
appealed and eventually served four years in Sing Sing for
manslaughter. Robert Fuller, Jubilee Jim: The Life of Colo-
nel James Fisk, Jr. (New York: Macmillan, 1928). See also
Robert Elman, Fired in Anger: The Personal Handguns of
American Heroes and Villains (Garden City, N.J.: Dou-
bleday & Co., 1968), 316-327. In the Review version of this
letter, Mrs. White says: "Near us sits the far-famed Stokes,
a pleasant-appearing, middle-aged man, but whose hair is as
white as a person's usually is at a much more advanced age.
Having retreated to the mountains, he is now actively
engaged in mining operations, and was on his way to
Sacramento on business."
42. Cape Horn afforded one of the most spectacular views
of the Sierras, but it was not a sight for the timid. The rail bed
had been blasted out of solid rock 2,000 feet above the
winding gorge of the American River. This was the steepest,
most winding pan of the journey down the Sierras. Randy
Butler, "Overland By Rail, 1869-1890," in Gary Land, ed.,
The World of Ellen While, 73.
43. In 1878 new rail lines were built from Oakland to

34 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
"No pen or language can describe the grandeur" of the Sierra Nevedas, Mrs. White wrote. She and Mary stayed up their
last night to view the mountains by moonlight.
Lucinda and other friends." We find in market new
potatoes. The very day I arrived we rode out and
gathered nice new turnip greens. We are beginning
to get used to Oakland a little now. But it has been
raining last night and this forenoon.
Lizzie, I meant to have copied this off, but have not
time. Please put in Clara's45 hands, and tell her to copy
it for you and arrange it in order. It is a beautiful
morning. Wish it may be as pleasant with you. Much
love to my dear sister Lizzie from her twin sister, Ellen
G. White.
Will you inquire of Mrs. DeLarkins" if she is free to
engage in the Crystal Springs Sanitarium47if we should
make arrangements for her to do so? This institution is
Martinez, and from Benicia to Suisun, and still later from
Benicia to Fairfield. This last bit of road enabled Central
Pacific trains to run from Sacramento to San Francisco via
Benicia, instead of passing through Vallejo. Stuart Daggett,
Chapters on the History of the Southern Pacific (New York:
The Ronald Press Co., 1922), 141.
44. Edson was Ellen White's son James Edson White.
Her daughter- in-law was Emma MeDearmon White. Lu-
cinda Abbey Hall, a close friend and occasional assistant of
Ellen White's, was also on hand to welcome her home. See
Arthur L. White, "Ellen White Letters Discovered in
Historical Collection," Review and Herald, Vol. 150 (Aug.
located in St. Helena. She may have seen it. It has
almost every advantage health-wise, but needs physi-
cians who understand their business. I go to St. Helena
next week and then will write again. What wages will
she require? Tell her to address me at Oakland,
California, Pacific Press.
I hope you are doing well. I would be so glad to see
you. May the Lord lead you to put your entire trust in
Him. He loves you and will delight to bless you if you
will come to Him for light and strength. Do, my sister,
identify yourself with the people of the Lord.48 Stand
in the ranks and under the banner of Jesus Christ.
Good-bye. This must go to the office.
16, 1973), 1,10-11; Paul Gordon and Ron Graybill, "Letters
to Lucinda," Review and Herald, Vol. 150 (Aug. 23, 1973),
pp. 4-7.
45. Clara E. Foster, a niece of Ellen White and Elizabeth
Bangs. See Clara E. Foster to Ellen G. White, April 26, 1880.
46. Mrs. De Larkins has not been identified.
47. The Adventist health-care institution in the hills
above the Napa Valley near St. Helena, California, now the
St. Helena Adventist Hospital and Health Center, Deer Park,
California.
48. Ellen White's sister never became a Seventh-day
Adventist although the two of them remained on good terms.
LETTER TO ELIZABETH 35
 4
iiie...1Ai!, i-'ilt WI ir MI
lif A VI 6:1F.Millitui .1111
I AIL MIAS ail Alif r Au
"".d relaMail On
ill
swims
Cm ORNILIIII,1
w wow. alimpana.
1145.11MiZi I

John Nevins Andrews School, Takoma Park, Maryland, May 13, 1932
36 SUMMER, 1990
 A Room for the
Teacher

by Miriam Wood

c arolyn Seamount remembers vividly indeed. "That year

was nearly my Waterloo. When the taxi, on my first day,
delivered me to the house I had been told would be my
home, I was met in the yard by identical twin boys about
six years of age, one of them a severe stutterer. He kept saying,'who
. . . who . . . who . . . are . . . you? Why . . . why . . . why . . . do
. . . do . . . you . . . you . . . have . . . a . .. suitcase?' and so on and
on. Then he and his brother flew up the steps ahead of me and he
shouted, 'Moth . . . Moth . . . Moth . . . there's . . . a . . . a . . . la
. . . la ... lady ... with a suitcase . . . and ... I .. . II. . . think she's
going to stay . . . stay . . . stay . . . stay . . . a . . . long . . . long . . .
time . . . '
"I blushed in embarrassment. Then the lady of the house came
to the door and told me not to worry about the twins. She was
cordial as she showed me to my room. The family had six
childrenall of them uninhibited and noisy. The lady herself was
short and fat and roly-poly. On that first night when I was there,
she said, introducing this big family, and looking rather perplexed,
`I never expected to have any children. I was rather frail. I told Jim
when we married that I didn't think we should have a family, and
he agreed.' Jim, her small, feisty husband, nodded his agreement.
She continued. 'He said, "Oh, don't you worry about that. We
won't have any children." And I believed him! But you can see
how things turned out.'"

A ROOM FOR THE TEACHER 37

 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
Carolyn goes on to recall that it took her a few
minutes to recover from this rather frank discussion,
particularly since she was so young herself, and very
modest. After an uneasy night's sleep, she went down
to a breakfast which would become quite typical of the
morning fare in this homealways hotcakes. The
running dialogue, noise and confusion would come to
be as familiar to her as the schoolroom.
Carolyn Seamount's experience was shared by scores
of other Adventist church school teachers in the 1920s
and 30s. "Boarding around" was the common way
local congregations provided for their lodging and
meals. Their willingness to tolerate "existing" condi-
tions is yet another chapter in the untold story of these
forgotten heroines of Adventist history. Here they
recall the loneliness, the pathos, and the humor of
living in the homes of strangers.
On that first morning, Carolyn felt rather over-
whelmed by it all. Mrs. R. bustled about, cooking the
stacks of pancakes and serving them. Little Mr. R., not
an Adventist, sat tranquilly sipping his tea. One of the
small children began to chant, "1 want some tea, I want
some tea." Mrs. R., busy and harried, talking a blue
streak to Carolyn, her husband, and the other children,
ignored him. Red-faced, the child began yelling at the
top of his voice, "I want some tea, you old fool!"
Flustered, Mrs. R. hurriedly placed about a teaspoon-
ful of tea in a cup of hot water and placed it before the
little tyrant. Turning to Carolyn with an apologetic
smile, she remarked soothingly, "He doesn't mean it.
I Ie has no idea what he's saying."
As the weeks wore on, Carolyn found that, for a
woman who had planned not to have a family, Mrs. R.
was just about the most doting mother imaginable. She
was completely enchanted, completely captivated by
her children. They could do no wrong. Their every
word and action was surely the most remarkable ever
done or said by any children, living or dead. And the
sly, clever children knew just how to handle her. If
38 SUMMER, 1990
ever a mother was wrapped about the fingers of her
children, Mrs. R. was that mother.
The six-year-old twins were already past masters at
the art of mother-manipulation. Apparently at some
time in the past she had asked them what they wanted
to he when they grew up. "Preachers," they had
responded, off the tops of their heads. She was totally
ecstatic. She constantly repeated the question, revel-
ing in the automatic answer, and pointing out to
Carolyn and to her husband what perception and
dedication this showed in such young boys.
Then she decided that she must have a larger
audience for this pearl of commitment. The pastor
must hear the declaration. Accordingly, she invited
him to dinner the next Sabbath. When all the food had
been served, and everyone was eating, she seized the
moment.
Looking directly at the twins, who were sitting side
by side, she inquired in her sweetest voice, "Boys,
what do you want to be when you grow up?
"An elephant!" the first twin shouted, to her horri-
fied disbelief.
Pleadingly, she turned to the other twin and a note
of pitiful cajolery crept into her voice. "Now, be
Mommy's sweet boy. What are YOU going to be when
you grow up?"
Alas for her well-laid plans. "I'm going to be a
monkey and ride on the elephant!" was the summary of
his life's ambitions. Later she groaned to Carolyn,
"Why did I let their father take them to the circus this
week?"
When Valerie Cyphers entered teaching, she ac-
cepted the fact that these were years when the teachers
often lived and boarded with families who were not
able to pay cash tuition for their children, and made
their payment in this way. If they could not afford
tuition, it was unlikely that they could afford extra food
for her, but this never seemed to come into question.
But the system left much to be desired. "In one such
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
home where I lived for half the term, we had oatmeal
for breakfast every single day of the school year and for
supper we always had rutabagas and applesauce." Her
hostess, who sent her lunch with the children's, made
it painfully clear that she was permitted to have butter
on her bread, or jam, but never the two together.
Valerie's future husband was also a teacher. He had
somewhat more variety, as his breakfast was provided
at the home where he roomed; his lunch was sent to
him by a different family each day (and he never knew
whether or not he would receive it) and his supper was
served in yet another home, all this being accom-
plished in a rotation planned by the pastor. Valerie
says he has never forgotten what was apparently the
favorite sandwich of one of his lunch providers, this
being a cold cooked potato sliced between bread, with
no butter, mayonnaise, or other seasoning.
At still another school he discovered, to his discom-
fiture, that the money paid for his mealsthis being a
somewhat different arrangementwas the only money
the family had for their meals, also. The food, under-
standably, was so scarce that to keep body and soul
together, he had to sneak away and buy a few additions
to the menu whenever his slender wallet allowed this.
Even so, he felt vastly guilty as he thought of the thin
children around the family table.
When Amy Messenger started teaching in 1941, her
salary was $34 a month in cash. She "boarded and
roomed around." This meant, in her case, that she did
not know from one time period to the next where she
would be living and eating. She had to cope with a
feeling of great uneasiness at the end of each block of
time. "I was always concerned that I might be staying
beyond my welcome. On the other hand, when I
thought it was time for me to move on, I didn't want the
current family to think that I had been unhappy in their
home.
"No one had a spare room; no one really had room
for the teacher. Nevertheless, all were happy to share
with me whatever they did have. I think I've slept in
almost every room a house has. I slept in the living
room where the davenport made into a bed. I slept for
a time on a folding cot in the kitchen. I slept in the
same bedroom with the children. In some places I was
given a bedroom, and
the children slept on the
living room floor. In
one place I slept with
the baby, who was only
a year old. She always
wanted to snuggle up
very close to me. I would
keep moving overthen
she moved also. Then I
would get out of bed and
get in on the other side
and the cycle would start
all over again."
At one of her board- Amy Messenger
ing places, Amy recalls
that the food was very good at the first of the month
when payday came, but by the end of the month the
food supply was so low that the hostess prepared
pancakes for herself and her children, but sent Amy to
another Adventist lady's home in the community for
her meals. Amy, crimson with humiliation, realized
that her hostess had pleaded with the other lady to feed
her. Although embarrassed, Amy was also young and
hungry, and did not protest the plan.
"At this same place, one evening I was in my room
when I overheard the man from the small neighbor-
hood grocery store talking to the lady of the house. It
seemed that she owed a ten-dollar grocery bill, which
in those days, was a very large sum. He said he
couldn't give her any more credit. I remembered that
I had painstakingly saved ten dollars from my salary
during all those months. I knew she would never take
it from me, but I really wanted to help her out. I
decided I would pay the bill and she would never know
who had done it. I went to the post office and got a
A ROOM FOR THE TEACHER 39
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

money order for ten to me in my wild-

dollars. Then I sent est imaginings that
this to the grocery ref
VARIOUS people
store. But the lady .E
4
would provide
was determined to ( it this. For the first
find out the truth, part of the time I
and it didn't take ebticatrolir Zepartment lived with the B's.
of ibrocittbbaP abbentistz Obviously they
her long to worm a
010 (Lialffilli Mal has atlaisrb
weren't of the
confession out of iretits of 'Melanin ASS alliehntialens requires at tilt general Copeertme. as llitararb ea air

me. She was nei- rebertg !Nat 0 this ['Militate.. pal has also ern SatilaSitsq eft" Stalscrilitilbirig prisrgars `moneyed' class,
0 CRIS/Ian erillratiOili is therefore amarhet ass inrr.E.4-.4i-, .
ther happy nor but they were nice
grateful, and she firafefiginal Certificate to me. The home
told me so in no was up the hill
Valah for a perio6 of hhe !eargicom hate. unless retotrh.
uncertain terms." lama ai the Wirt of Or r-4t. Anion kortraarro about halfway to
fla=t
Helen IIudson's
:bit hay or
the top; the road
first living condi- was dirt, and the
tions were pretty first time I climbed
typical of that time. it, with a sinking
For added strain, heart I could visu-
she didn't know Certificates like this assured local school boards that the teacher was alize what it would
until the week qualified to teach. They did not, of course, ensure the teacher congen- be like when it
before school ial housing. rained. One nice
opened what thing, though, was
school she would be given. When the name was that the road wound through a grove of pine trees."
mentioned,a town in a nearby state, she had never And Helen even had a "room" of her own. This was a
heard of it. Later she learned that the church had given curtain separating one corner of the living room from
up the idea of a school that year because they simply the remainder. The children had been sternly told that
could not afford it. But the conference educational this segment of the room was off bounds to them. They
superintendent had met with them, and he must have were very cooperative. There was no indoor plumb-
been quite persuasive, as they came up with the plan of ing, just a pump in the kitchen. There was no electric-
"boarding the teacher around" and paying her next-to- ity. But there was a beautiful view of the valley, which
nothing in cash. Helen remarks with a rueful smile, helped to compensate Helen for the other things she
"No one gave a single thought as to how hard this did not have. As she went to bed that first night,
would be on a frightened and insecure young teacher." though, she had the disquieting sensation that she'd
But she decided to square her chin and shoulders and been dropped into a time warp and conveyed back to
make whatever best of it was to be made. the last century.
"In my innocence, I had thought boarding around "The walk down the hill was enjoyable in the fall,
went out in 1899! I had been told that my board and but I wondered about winter there in Colorado in the
room would be part of my wages, but it hadn't occurred foothills of the Rockies. And I found outit was
terrible."

40 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
In January, Helen went to live with a family who
lived only a fourth of a mile from the school, a much
more practical situation in the constant heavy snow-
falls. She would be with them one month, she was told,
because even though they were "older people" and had
no children in school, they wanted to do their part by
providing the teacher's housing and food for a month.
Helen felt almost as though she were homeand when
the month was nearly over, the elderly couple just
couldn't bear to see her go into a home at such a
distance from the school that she'd be fighting the
snowdrifts twice a day once again. "It surely helped so
much during those two bad months to be close to the
school," Helen says. "They had running water and
plumbing, and they gave me a nice room. They were
"Old Country" German people and were very exacting
in many ways, but they became my good friends and
they meant a great deal to me."
But when March came, she realized that she must
not wear out her welcome. Unfortunately, the only
opening for her was with a family who had grudgingly
agreed before school began to take their turn at housing
and boarding the teacher. But they were the most
reluctant and unenthusiastic of hosts. When she ar-
rived, they met her at the door with all sorts of
apologies. "We're so sorry you have to come here. We
don't have a very good place. You'll have to put up
with lots . . ." and so on and on. Helen, young and
timid, was crushed with embarrassment. But she had
nowhere else to go.
It turned out that they didn't have such a had place
at all. They had indoor plumbing and electricity and
other enjoyable amenities. But Helen never really felt
welcome, never felt accepted. Mealtimes were embar-
rassing ordeals. As she thought it over, Helen won-
dered if Mr. M. had pledged a month's support for the
teacher without consulting his wifethe situation
seemed to have that sort of stamp. She came to realize
that this family, in spite of their "poor mouth" talk,
could easily have paid the tuition for their girl in
Helen's classroom, but they weren't allowed to handle
matters that way. The teacher had to live somewhere,
and the other families who had taken her in were
determined that the M's take their turn. Helen felt like
the most unpopular of mortals.
Somehow the month dragged by. Then it was time
to move again. But where would she go now? The
assigned family was four-and-a-half miles from the
school. How could she teach such long days and walk
both ways? Fortunately, by this time she had become
a dear friend of the family where she had first lived.
They simply could not see the fragile young girl submit
to such a strenuous ordeal, so they invited her back into
their home. Helen says, "I left the M's with their
plumbing, water, and electricitybut somehow I felt
they had very little of things that matteredand I went
back to the B's, who had none of those `conveniences,'
yet they had so much love for God and for me, it was
a joy to wake up each morning. I stayed with them
until school was out.
Contrary to the usual custom of the day, Helen was
invited to return to the same little country school the
next year. But what a difference! Now she was one of
them. Now she was among friends. Now she "be-
longed." And by the beginning of November she got
a chance to live right across the road from the school-
house. No more fighting those shoulder-high snows in
the middle of winter. This time her room was a
canvassed-in porch, sub-freezing during the winter, no
electricity, but each night she and her "family" had a
"banquet" by kerosene lamp.
"There was a lot of love in this house," Helen
remembers. Sometimes the elderly man who lived in
the cabin next door would join the evening "banquet,"
bringing marshmallows, which they all roasted over
the kerosene lamp, declaring them to be the most
enjoyable they'd ever had.
After Sarabel Cornell had taught (and survived) her
first year, she completed her academy work during the
summer and was the proud owner of a high school
A ROOM FOR THE TEACHER 41
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
diploma. Now she found that she would teach grades
one through four in Kansas City in a two-teacher
school. She would be given room and board with
several Bible workers who were training with Elder G.
R. West.
"My salary had risen to $12.50 per week, plus room
and board. I spent two years here, and, believe it or not,
my salary was finally the enormous sum of $80 a
month! The second year in this school, I boarded with
a family and had a new situation in that I paid them $25
a month for room and board. I saved a little each month
and hoped to spend a year in Union College in the not-
too-distant future."
Sarabel's dream had a solid foundation. She did get
hack to Union College fora year. Her living conditions
in college consisted of room and board in a doctor's
home, for which she worked by caring for an invalid
when she was not on the campus at class. Since the
doctor's home was a mile-and-a-half from the college,
the kindly man paid the nickel fare each way for
Sarabel, feeling that she was loaded down as heavily as
any girl her age should be. But he didn't understand
the depth of her commitment. "Many times I walked
and then I had the nickel for my spending money. But
that was the year all the banks closed and 1 lost my poor
little savings. Then I couldn't afford but one year of
college, so I went back into teaching."
In an empty three-room apartment, for which she
was paying $20 a month rent, Elsie Hansen found that
a bed and mattress and kitchen table had been pro-
vided, but no other furniture. She had not one cent to
buy anything. She found some wooden apple boxes to
scatter about in the rugless living room. What would
"company" think? No problem. She never had any
company.
Mary Bishop's experience ran counter to those of
her fellow teachers. "In Oregon," she says, "during my
15 years of church school teaching, there was only one
year that I boarded around with different parents. That
year I did have my own room in one of the homes, but
I ate each meal at a different place." One wonders what
42 SUMMER, 1990
happened when Mary encountered the same food
rice, for instancethree times in one day.
"Jancy," in Michigan, had the unique experience of
being told that she would have to live in the YWCA.
She was young and lonely and inexperienced, but, like
her sister-teachers, she squared her shoulders and
accepted the tiny cubicle which she was assigned. Of
course, there were no cooking facilities. "We were
told not to take any food to our rooms, because it might
draw bugs. So most of my meals were purchased to be
eaten at once. For breakfast and lunch I lived out of the
corner grocery store. Usually I purchased a piece or
two of fruit and a small vegetable-shortening cake, or
cookies, or a candy bar. If I bought a whole loaf of
bread, it either got stale or moldy before I could finish
it. I had no access to refrigeration of any kind. For
supper I'd sit on a high stool at the lunch counter in the
basement of the 'Y' and order a vegetable plate. This
meant boiled potatoes, peas, beets, or green beansall
canneda salad, and milk.
"Jancy" goes on to describe how good food became
almost an obsession with her. "How tantalizing the
sandwiches looked that students brought in lunchbags
and shiny lunch pails! But Wednesdays were worst of
all. That was Dorcas day, and from the other part of the
church, I smelled marvelous odors of the food brought
by the Dorcas ladies who met for quilting and other
sewing. I got so hungry I could hardly teach."
Food problems weren't the only trials for "Jancy"
that year. She felt a sense of increasing isolation, living
by herself in her little cubicle. The interests of the
other girls rooming at the "Y" were vastly different
from hers. There seemed to be no common meeting
ground. School days weren't too bad, though she often
dreaded the lonely evenings. But Sabbaths and Sun-
days were sheer torture. No one ever invited her for
Sabbath dinner.
"My favorite family had three students in school.
But I was told that they wanted to be alone on Sabbaths
as a family. So after church I usually returned to my
tiny room for a feast of baked beans from a can and
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

some soda crackers that I kept hidden for such occa-

sions. I tried to eat the whole can of beans so the -A-
remains wouldn't draw either bugs or comments from
the daily housekeeper who inspected the rooms."
"fancy" explains why she was in such a small
cubicle. "This room wasn't usually rented, as it was so
terribly small. But when I had explained to the people
at the 'V how desperate I was for a low-rent room,
they consented to let me have this one. It was just large
enough for a single bed with a small aisle to squeeze
between the bed and the old-fashioned dresser. It also
had one chair and perhaps it even had a small stand.
But the room served its purpose. Many nights I graded
papers piled high all over the bed."
She realizes now, after years have passed, that had
she been more understanding, she probably could have
found a friend or two among the other girls at the "Y."
But she was very young and very immature. She had
been strongly warned about the dangers of becoming
friendly with "worldly people." And she ought to have
taken more exercise, she now realizes.
"I thought then that it was a sin to sit around with the
coffee-drinking girls, and waste time, and I'm still not
fond of the idea, but I could have taken a cup of Postum
and gotten to know a few of the girls."
"Friday nights, after my Sabbath preparations and Mary McIntyre Deming (left) enjoyed her experiences both
as teacher of the Jackson Prairie school and as boarder in
my little worship, I would play the piano in the large
the Yeatts' home.
parlor for hours, then set my hair and go to bed.
Sabbaths always found me at Sabbath School and some far-off land. She was a very brave young woman,
church, Wednesday nights at prayer meetings, and I willing to enter into the struggles of the little Jackson
went to any and all evangelistic crusades that were Prairie Church to provide a church school for their
held." children. She agreed not only to board the teacher, but
Mary McIntyre Deming's experience was much to keep three children from another family (the Wis-
happier. "Arriving in Chehalis, Washington, I was met beys) so that they might also have church school
by the young pastor of the district, Marion Mohr, who privileges."
took me out to meet Mrs. Roy 0. Yeatts, the lady with From this point in time, and thinking of the logistics
whom I was to live during the school year 1943-44. of the situation, Mary exclaims, "What sacrifices our
Her husband was a physician serving his country in dear parents made to provide Christian education for

A ROOM FOR THE TEACHER 43

 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

their children! At times I shudder at the inexperience

of those of us in charge of that education."
Young Mrs. Yeatts really had her hands full. There
was Myrna, third grade; the three Wisbey children
(Lowell, age 14, grade 7; Donna, grade 5; Delbert,
grade 4) and the homesick young teacher with a most
healthy appetite.
Young "Mother Yeatts" was equal to the task of
coping with her brood, as well as the teacher's longing
for home. As if that weren't enough to occupy her
time, she kept the infant daughter of a young couple for
a short period, since the nervous new mother couldn't
seem to cope with the baby crying night and day.
"Needless to say, the baby soon became calm and
slept, and took her formula like a normal baby should.
Before long, new mother and new baby were happily
reunited and got along well from then onbecause of
Mrs. Yeatts."
The house in which the brood lived was out in the
countrya two-story structure, unfinished, with no
electricity. During these war years, people lived where
and how they could. Fortunately, a male relative lived
in a smaller building on the same acreage, which
meant that one husky handyman was available when
the generator, which provided them with electricity in
the evenings and early mornings, demanded attention. Teacher Mary McIntyre Denting peers out the front door of
the Yeaus home. Her students and housemates include
Their running water was provided by a windmill's
Donna and Lowell Wisbey, Myrna Yeatts, Delbert Wisbey,
power. One of their most fervent prayers was for wind
and (head down in foreground) Johnny Thompson.
on Fridays so that they could all take baths.
In spite of the hardships, and the poignant trips to England winter when she took up residence with
the mailbox, hoping to hear from home, Mary remem- another teacher who already was in possession of an
bers that Mrs. Yeatts didn't permit it to be a gloomy apartment. The arrangement had been that her rent
time. money would help with expenses, but somehow things
"We hiked through the woods. Sometimes I would didn't work out as they should. "My hostess didn't get
get permission for my entire little school to pick apples her salary on time any more than I did. We didn't have
from abandoned orchards. And every Friday night money to keep the two stoves going. We couldn't
Mrs. Yeatts made delicious cinnamon rolls as a treat." afford fuel. So there was no heat in the stove in the
Summing up the richness of this experience, and the front room. We shared a bedroom, and in there we
indelible impression this unusual young woman made tried to keep the stove at least lukewarm, but during the
on her life when she was a beginning teacher, Mary nights in winter it was so cold that I felt I was always
says, "As I look back, my admiration for Mrs. Yeatts is half-awake, no matter how many quilts and blankets I
unbounded. She must have known moments of lone- piled on my bed."
liness and frustration with three often lonely little When Dorothy N. Ford in 1940 accepted a call to
boarder children to console; a young, inexperienced teach in Missoula, Montana, she found that a very large
teacher to encourage and counsel; her teen-aged son old house had been converted into not only a school
having his own adjustments to make in a boarding room, but also housing for herself and another teacher.
academy; and her husband far across the sea in a war This housing was in the form of the other side of the
to say nothing of her little girl at home. I ask myself, school room, with a curtain acting as the "wall" which
`How much gratitude did she receive from me? How provided "privacy." There was an upstairs apartment
much help did I give her? Or did I just accept it all?'" which housed an evangelist and his wife, who were
Mrs. John Aluisi will never forget one cold New conducting meetings.

44 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
In spite of these rather unusual living conditions,
Dorothy felt that she had a good school year and that
the parents were most supportive and helpful. The
next year she had a call at the last moment to teach in
Kalispell, Montana, one of the most northern areas in
the state. Arriving on the train on Labor Day, she tried
to phone someone from the church, but to no avail.
Apparently everyone was celebrating at a picnic or
some other outdoor activity. She knew that the church
school room was attached to the back of the church.
She finally found it.
"Then I began to look for a room close by and found
one just around the corner. I moved in with my worldly
possessionsmy suitcase. That was really some winter.
Kalispell is nothing but bitter cold and snow for
months and months in winter. I chopped my own wood
for heating and cooking on the wood cook stove in my
room, often taking care of this the first thing in the
morning. Then I went to the school and chopped wood,
if this had not been done by others, and I built the fire
so that the room would be warm for the children."
The thing that troubled Dorothy the most was how
she would do justice to all the grades in one room.
Even using alternate day recitations as had been sug-
gested in college summer school, she knew it would be
far less than an ideal situation. In addition, the first
graders were all very, very young, immature, and
restless. They would have benefited by remaining
home another yearof this she was convincedbut
she was not able to convince the parents. So she simply
did the best she could. Then Elder R. E. Finney, a well-
known evangelist, came to town to conduct a series of
meetings. Dorothy was pressed into service as pianist
every evening of the week.
It became too much. Her body rebelled. She
became too exhausted and ill to go on and had to ask to
be relieved for the rest of the year. Her valiant spirit
was more than willing, but the flesh couldn't keep up
with the spirit. "I felt like a failure for a long time after
that experience," Dorothy says.
Mrs. Dallas Youngs had the same kind of experi-
ence as some of her cohortsboarding around, each
meal at a different home, and sleeping with one of the
children. But there were some bright spots. "For
supper I ate in the home of the Franz family. Clyde was
one of my pupils and later grew up to be a minister and
to serve as Secretary of the General Conference." Mrs.
Youngs adds thoughtfully, "A nicer boy no teacher
ever had."
Another facet of this year in Alabama that remains
in her mind is the colicky baby, the newest child in a
large family where she stayed for a month or so. "The
baby cried all the time, but I didn't seem to mind it too
much, though I really wasn't used to babies, since there
weren't any in my home. I guess I just adjusted
rapidly."
When J. Helen Graham landed in the small Michi-
gan town where she'd agreed to teach, she discovered
that the schoolroom was in one of the members'
homeseverything had been cleared out to make
room for it. "I had the northwest room in the same
house. The hostess had tried to make it attractive with
a nice-looking bed, a dresser, a commode with a wash
bowl and a pitcher. Since there was no electricity and
we had to carry wood upstairs for heat in the school-
room, I had to do my studying downstairs where were
gathered father, mother, the hired girl, and seven
children, ages two through ten. With no running water,
there was no bathroom or inside toilet. I took my bath
in the schoolroom in a wash basin."
Savilla B. Lownsbery says, "After teaching four
years, I decided to spend some time at Emmanuel
Missionary College, desiring to finish Advanced Nor-
mal. In May of 1926, Professor Fattic had told me he
had plans for me to teach the lower grades in Lansing,
Michigan. My dear parents rented their home in Ithaca
and were desirous of being with me. We drove down
the street and saw a sign 'House for Rent.' I inquired
about it. The lady informed me that it was down in the
heart of the city. When I told her I needed one in the
vicinity where we were standing, she thought about it
for a moment and replied, 'We will move into the other
A ROOM FOR THE TEACHER 45
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE

The first church school in Lansing, Michigan, was held in a small building next to the church. Later, the building
was attached to the church in order to make room for the growing congregation.

house and you can move into this one.' We lived there
happily until the house sold four years later."
Her good luck on housing continued. Again she
could not believe her ears when a family offered to
move, thus making available a house which was the
ideal site for her teaching situation. This occurred in
the little town of Mt. Pleasant, Michigan. But later, in
Cadillac, she remembers four years of driving over icy
and snowy roads, her heart in her mouth. Then she
decided she couldn't cope with that any longer. When
she left school on a certain Thursday, she turned at one
of the corners and glanced up and down the street. Her
eye lighted on a small, neat house which appeared to be
empty. Knocking on the door of the house nearest it,
she inquired, "Is the house next door to you for rent?"
"Well," answered the lady at the door, "I think it
will be. The people just moved out around noon."
"Oh, do you have the name and address of the
owner?" Savilla cried.
The woman did. Savilla rushed to her car and drove
to the address, which proved to be a farmhouse. She
saw a man working out in the field, and ran to him.
Breathlessly she exclaimed, "I'd like to rent your
house in town!" Startled at the sight of this young
woman who had appeared apparently out of nowhere,
he replied, "But it's already rented."
Quickly Savilla replied, "Oh, your tenants moved
out at noon today."
The farmer scratched his head. "That doesn't seem
possible. They didn't say a word to me. Aren't people
queer?"
They agreed on the strangeness of people and on the
rent and that was that.
Another teacher's experience was a bit more typi-
cal. Her first school was in St. Johns, Michigan, and
was held in part of a house with very little equipment.
She had 15 children in six grades. "I had to take an oath
of allegiance to support the Constitution of the United
States, because of Jehovah's Witnesses who had been
active in that area. I lived upstairs in one room and
cooked for myself on a hot plate. A family lived in a
back apartment and I got my water there. The only
toilets were those for the school. I paid $2.00 a week
for my room. My food cost about $2.00. I bought a

46 SUMMER, 1990
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
trunk, a teacher's encyclopedia, and I even saved a few
dollars that first year.
E. E. Messenger found himself boarding in a home
where, although the family were church members,
pork and lard were still part of their diet. This posed a
severe problem for him. And he wasn't too much
better off at yet another home where the men of the
family were ardent fishermen; fish was a staple in the
diet there.
Enid Sparks summed it up succinctly: "You had no
trouble visiting the families of your students, since you
boarded around. One place I had green beans three
times a day and heavy, heavy bread made of all-ground
whole wheat."
The household where Mrs. Eric Johnson found
herself, consisted of the head church elder and his wife,
three school boys, a three-year-old boy, and a girl
living with this family in order to attend the ninth
grade. The latter was the teacher's room and bedmate.
"Our upstairs room was heated by a floor register
from heat in the living room below. When our room
was terribly cold, I joined the family in the evenings
and studied right along with them at the dining room
table. In the morning we hurried downstairs and to the
outside toilet. Then we brushed our teeth and washed
our faces at the kitchen sink with water from the water
pail and from the hot teakettle on the stove."
But the teacher in this case felt that she was pretty
fortunate, because her hostess was so efficient. "When
I got home from school on Fridays this organized
mother would have all the children bathed for Sabbath
so that I could have the warm kitchen with the wooden
tub and warm water which she had heated on the
kitchen stove."
Another teacher who remembers a hostess kindly, if
somewhat ruefully, is Mildred Berggren. "I had no
way to cook or have food in my room, so I took all my
meals at the minister's house. I gained ten pounds that
year on Mrs. Olson's good cooking!"
Esther Holland says of life in Eagle Falls, Idaho, in
1940-41, "There was a two-room apartment above the
school in the church. I, with my three little girls, paid
$10 a month for it, which included our wood for both
the school and our apartment. The water was in a pump
at the front. Both school room and our apartment used
a pail. There were screened outhouses, one for boys
and one for girls. I paid anything which appeared on
the electric bill above the minimum charge, which the
church paid. However, if a week or more of evening
meetings had been held during the month, it was felt
that the church owed the electricity and not I!"
Esther goes on to recall that their baths were taken
in a washtub with water they heated on the stove.
Fortunately, they possessed a sink with a drain, so they
didn't have to carry used water downstairs to dispose
of it.
"I received $60 a month cash, and I did not have to
pay tuition for my two girls who were in school. I sent
my little five-year-old up the street to a church mem-
ber's home for the morning when the weather was bad.
Otherwise, she played around the school yard, and ate
lunch with us in the schoolroom." Summing up these
years, with living room sleeping quarters, bedmates,
kitchen tub baths, long hikes through the snow and
bills of fare in which the teacher had no choice, Mrs.
Eric Johnson remembers only the good.
"Boarding around was an opportunity to be part of
a family for a few months, and it was the beginning of
many long-lasting friendships. . . I could not even
complain about the small room with no closet where
the mice would dig between the floor boards looking
for stray oat kernels from the old days when seed oats
had been stored up in the attic. I just swept the floor
every morning and was thankful for the room."
A ROOM FOR THE TEACHER 47
 ADVENTIST HERITAGE
On Second Thought.. .
Pearl Waggoner Nels Peter Nelson
Pearl Waggoner, daughter of E. J. Waggoner, was
mistakenly identified in the Vol. 13, Number 1 ofAD-
VENTIST HERITAGE as Waggoner's first wife, Jessie
Moser.
N. P. Nelson (1870-1924) was incorrectly identified
as a delegate to the 1888 General Conference in Vol.
13, Number 1. The Nelson who attended the 1888
General Conference was Nels Peter Nelson (1844-
1905). Nels Peter Nelson raised up the first Seventh-
day Adventist church in the Dakota Territory at Swan
Lake. He served as president in the Dakota Confer-
ence and later as president of the Nebraska Confer-
The Editor's Stump, Cont.
Ellen White which has been handed down from gen-
eration to generation of the D. T. Bourdeau family. It
is usually difficult to prove or disprove the authenticity
of such stories. There is no reason to doubt the
Bourdeau story, yet even the most honest among us are
subject to the tricks of memory. Details are forgotten,
words spoken by one person are attributed to another,
and time collapses and expands as we seek to recall
events or advice from the past in ways that might be
useful today.
Regardless of the degree of authenticity one attrib-
utes to these stories as accounts of the distant past, they
are fascinating evidence of the influence and impact of
Ellen White on her spiritual descendants. Often these
stories provide a positive counter-balance to unflatter-
ing sterotypes of Ellen White. One sometimes hears
that Mrs. White said every woman should have a red
dress in her wardrobe. The story provides relief from
48 SUMMER, 1990
Anna and Charles A. Hall
ence. He was one of the founders of Union College. In
1903 he became president of the Southwestern Union
Conference.
The name Charles Andrew Hall (1866-1917) ap-
peared in our last issue as a delegate to the 1888
General Conference, but the dates of his birth and
death were incorrect and no photograph had been
found. He was actually born in 1848 in Vermont, and
died at Graysville, Tennessee, in 1904. From 1888-
1894 Hall served in Kansas, part of the time as presi-
dent of the Kansas Conference. He and his family later
worked in Jamaica, Georgia, and Tennessee.
the image of Ellen White's own clothing which appar-
ently included only dark, solid colors, Actually, the
story comes to us through Ellen White's granddaugh-
ter, who only reported Ellen White's having told a
particular woman that a red dress would look nice on
her.
The Bourdeau family's story about Ellen White's
advice to a nervous bridegroom similarly counters the
image of Ellen White as a straight-laced prude. In
Ellen White's own time, there was little call to repeat
the story publicly, for most people were more comfort-
able if such matters were kept out of public discourse.
Today we tend to be suspicious of someone who offers
domestic advice without a hearty endorsement of
physical affection and intimacy in marriage. So the
story is no longer merely a private memory passed on
by a single family, it now becomes a part of the
Adventist heritage.
 With Thanks.. .
The staff of ADVENTIST HERITAGE wishes to acknowledge the contributions
of these individuals to the ADVENTIST HERITAGE ENDOWMENT

LeRoy Achenbach Shahin her Virginia D. Reedy

Mildred A. Baker
A. C. Barley
Daniel B. Bernard
Evelyn S. Boyd
Leila T. Brathwaite
Bernard D. Briggs
Robert N. Brown
Bennie Brown
Campus Hill SDA Church
Ronald and Patti Carroll
Paul and Irene Cermak
Lawrence E. Crandall
Brian C. Crane
Marilyn C. Crane
Clara L. Diminyatz
Donald W. Dorward
Robert Dotson
Lillian Feldman
Galen M. Fillmore
Leona C. Fritz
Frances B. Gainey
Frederick E. Harrison
M. Hatch
Betty A. Hausman
Twila Heinrich
Chuck Hess
Charles B. Hirsch
John M. Hnatashyn
Russell B. Hoffman
Ina J. Howard
Loren V. Johnson Nile I. Reeves
James M. Kaatz Richard Rimmer
Paul W. Kemper Douglas Robertson
Dorothy S. Kewley Nellie Ross
Virginia H. Kilpper G. F. Ruff
Waiter Knittle Leona G. Running
Isabel Koetter Paul B. Scott
Bernettie Krieger Laurence A. Senseman
Edmund D. Lacy Amy Sheffield
Edward Leatherwood Laurence A. Skinner
Steven M. Loy Leslie A. Smart III
Goldie M. Mackey Mary 0. Smith
Arthur J. Martinson Gladys C. Smouse
R.K. and Ione McAllister C. R. and Ruth Spangler
Arnold A. Michals H. W. and Sylvia Spiva
Dorothy Milstrap I. V. Stonebrook
Pedro A. Morales E. D. Streeter
Evelyn R. Moran Helen Ward Thompson
Milton J. Murray J. J. Thompson
Newbold College Library James G. Towery
James R. Nix Universidad de Montemorelos
Robert W. Nixon Marvin Walter
Irene E. Griner Leon Waters
Mr. and Mrs. Oshita Hideo Marcella K. West
Mary E. Paulson Florence B. Wical
Rose Peach Thelma .1. Wilbur
Earl E. and Betty Peters Tom Willey
John E. Peterson, Sr. Hazel Yates
Robert 0. Rausch Virginia E. Young
Kathleen Zolber

The ADVENTIST HERITAGE ENDOWMENT fund has been established

by Loma Linda University to assist in the publication of the journal. Your
contribution will help assure the continuation of ADVENTIST HERITAGE.
Donations should be made payable to LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY. Please
mail to:

ADVENTIST HERITAGE
LOMA LINDA UNIVERSITY LIBRARY
LOMA LINDA, CA 92350
 Yft,
.....a. , .1111)456.10 ,1j,m

Fk
FOgrAVAOLIVIIIIMOrti
riliTINVIOIPMFOU II
8M W TE rS 1111111k 1111141.41iiinr4
fl 3 4 s (, . 7 7 MitiprAktlic
8 9 iG 1/ 12 /3 14 MI MNIPINIIIIIIIII
14.7 1 b 17 1
212,324
19 20
722113. II
El
MI rinilliellia
MI iiiipossimpjAmeina s I
IN Immo siswmas I am
_T..-
niv 1: rbaie ea IA
l